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wow, love this. I think this was one of my bigger insights during the last shroom trip. It was kind of hard for me to formulate the insight. I had this deep struggle within, it kept choking me and I kept looking, seeking, doing, thinking and trying to grasp like crazy. then I suddenly realized That I need to let go and so I did. It felt lie such a release. Like struggling up an infinite mountain, reaching the top and then jump down in total bliss and freedom <3 thanks for putting this into words

Shin...It was more like this: He was excited because he saw nothingness and this: It's called Riding the Ox Backwards in Zen. (Well, the animation is supposed to be going backwards instead.) And, this massive light goes into the body with extreme bliss like this: It may have been different since it's done with 5meo. I dunno.

When you meditate and you experience bliss for the first time

pond jumping, part 1. I'm finally back to some semblance of sanity after three weeks of insanity. Ten days in Ireland, ten days in Peru. Seriously, I was beginning to go insane. It wasn't because I was away from home, nor was it because of the layovers and long travel times. It was due mainly to lack of alone time and dietary options. No offense to the Irish, but your food totally sucks, especially for vegetarians/vegans. Hardly any fresh produce; all deep fried processed potato-ey constipating foods. The group that I was with also provided too much food. My constipation was so bad that I looked pregnant; I'm surprised nobody asked me if I was. Being incredibly constipated reminded me of my hellishly miserable school years. I have no doubts now: an unhappy body is an unhappy psyche. Then there was the group I was with. The three other millenials I roomed with were so shallow that even the Irish puddles were saying, "Dayum son!" Is this really what it's come to? Snapchatting every single fucking moment of your life? Filling every waking moment with noise? Gossiping about the Kardashians and the people sitting next to you? I know I sound condescending. But my God, I'm concerned. More and more, I feel like a stranger in a strange land, and Leo's recent episode on loneliness really resonates. I also think of this scene from Wall-E. I went to Ireland for a songwriting workshop, hoping that it could give me some clarity on my relationship with music. It did, but not in the way I hoped. The workshop felt like a break-up. I've spent the past three years seriously building my music and songwriting skills, but now I realize that it's not what I want to do full-time. I hate traditional songwriting. I feel like a charlatan whenever I do it. This workshop reminded me of my social studies classes in primary school, which I always hated. I was a math/science guy in school. The insight I gleaned is this: I'm primarily a musician, not a songwriter. I'm an emotional engineer, not a storyteller. I listen to music less for the lyrics and more for the musicality. For the past three years, the universe has been beating me down, telling me not to be a performing artist. I don't feel built for it. I'm extremely introverted, don't resonate with most people, and most people don't resonate with me. I went into music for music's sake, not for a sense of impact on others. Now I'm craving that sense of impact, and music's not giving it to me. The next insight: music probably won't be my full-time job. I can see myself having an online following and doing busking/local gigs, but no more than that. The blog's also been an interesting experiment, but I feel it burning out as well. I figure I'll keep writing here and ditch the blog. Along with "Follow your bliss," I received some solid advice from one of the songwriters who led the group. "If it ain't 'Hell yeah!' then it's 'No'", she said. Well, songwriting and the blog are not a "hell yeah" anymore, and no amount of listening to music/reading has reignited the fire. I purposely paused on the Life Purpose Course because of how volatile I've been lately. To be expected as a clueless twenty-something...

@Azrael I believe there is a point where you realize that what majority of hoomans call falling in love and "bliss" is actually a bigass load of suffering. In my case several months ago romantic feelings started spontaneously appearing for girls I had not seen for ages, and then disappearing as the lovey-dovey romance was purged away. Funnily enough usually the bottom line emotion of the "love" was loneliness... talk about purity of romantic love FUCKING HOLYWOOD FUCKING HELL FUCK YOU XD.

You can meditate, force yourself to be silent, but you will miss Atman, true self. You will look sad, dull, dead, unintelligent, for the simple reason that you have chosen a shortcut and there is no shortcut. You have avoided the complexity of spiritual transformation. You have chosen meditation, you have forced your mind to be still. It is a negative state; your mind is only empty, not silent — forcibly made still. But it is not a natural growth of silence. Many people have tried to meditate without bliss because it is simple, less complex. You have to take only one work upon yourself: that you have to still your mind. And you can force your mind to be stilled, but you will become sad, you will have a long face. It is easy to meditate if you don’t want to be blissful — it is very easy to meditate. Truth has to be total, truth has to be whole. And the whole truth is: bliss PLUS meditation. It is difficult of course, arduous, to manage both. A meditator is not identified with his mind but he can use his mind whenever he needs. He will become more intelligent, but he is able to turn the mechanism of verbalization on and off. Unnecessary chattering of mind will not be there. When you are existing as a social being, the mechanism of language is needed; but when you are alone with existence, you must be able to turn it off. If you can’t turn it off – if it goes on and on, and you are incapable of stopping it – then you have become a slave to it. Mind must be an instrument, not the master. When you walk, you need to move your legs. But if they go on moving when you are sitting, then you are mad. You must be able to turn them off. In the same way, when you are not talking with anyone, language must not be there. It is a technique to communicate. When you are not communicating with anybody it should not be there. If you are able to do this, you can grow into meditation.

I guess I could have phrased that more clearly...I just mean that this realization that "nobody exists" seems like it is rather earth shattering, the "collapsing of the dream". But it's not really a phenomenon you hear about for a typical person, for instance I don't personally know anybody that has experienced this, spiritual seeker or not. But I know plenty of people that have experienced the flow state or moments of bliss. So it could be that there are other elements involved in the collapsing of the dream, that guys like Tony Parsons are unaware of. From his vantage point now, it may seem like a spontaneous event that is not preceded by anything, but he may not be aware of everything that allowed him to finally awaken. Paraphrasing Nisargadatta Maharaj, the fruit falls instantly from the tree, but the ripening took time. Parsons may be unaware of the ripening process he himself went through. And the fact remains that the majority of these neo-advaita people did indeed spend much time seeking and meditating prior to their awakening. Perhaps that is the ripening process.

1. Start with the daytime. With the first ray of consciousness as you wake up in the morning, start the experiment. After a thousand attempts, perhaps one may succeed but even if one attempt is successful you will realize that the thousands of attempts were worthwhile. If even for a moment, you came to experience that he who walks is not you but he who is unmoving is you; he who is full of desires is not you, but that he who is forever desireless is you; that that which is perishable is not you, but the fountain of eternal nectar is you. Start with the daytime, and gradually you will succeed in carrying it through into your sleep. Gurdjieff used to teach his disciples to practice awareness during the daytime, and then he would tell them that just before going to bed they must remember: ”This is a dream.” You are still awake. There is no dream yet, but you have to keep repeating to yourself: ”Everything I see is a dream.” Touch the bed and intensify the feeling: ”Whatever I touch is a dream.” Touch one hand with the other, and experience: ”All that I touch is a dream.” You go to sleep sinking deep into this feeling. There will be a constant stream of feeling moving inside. After a few days you will find that in the middle of a dream you will suddenly become aware that it is a dream. As soon as you remember that it is a dream, the dream breaks, because the dream works only in the absence of consciousness. Then you will be filled with bliss such as you have never known before. 2.Shankara’s Vedanta propounds the concept that the universe is an illusion. This philosophy is an experiment of the same kind. The seeker has to remember constantly that whatever is happening is a dream. While getting up in the morning, walking on the road, in the midst of the marketplace, he has to remember: ”Everything is a dream.” Why? Because this is the method. It is a process. If you experiment constantly for eight hours, this remembrance will penetrate so deeply that you will remember it even in the middle of the dream; you will remember that it is a dream. At present you are unable to remember. Actually, you are doing it even now – but in the reverse order. All your waking hours you feel and understand that whatever you see is real. And that is why dreams seem real at night, because the feeling is very strong. What can be more false than dreams? How many times on waking up have you realized their falsity, their uselessness? Yet every night you make the same mistake. Why? There must be a very deep reason behind this folly. The reason is: in your waking state you take everything to be true. If you take everything you see to be real, then how can the dreams you see at night appear to be illusory? You take them to be real. The maya experiment is just the opposite. Whatever you see during the day, you remember that this is unreal. You forget again and again, but once again you pull yourself together. You remind yourself that everything you see is nothing but a huge drama in which you are only a spectator. You are not the actor, not the doer, but only a witness. If you nurture this feeling, it becomes a constant flow within. Finally the dream disappears in the night, and this is a great attainment. If the dream is shattered, you are ready to take the third step. If the dream is shattered, you can take the third step of retaining consciousness in deep sleep. But right now this is difficult for you. It is not possible to do it all at once; you must proceed step by step. 3. While walking along the road, stop! Become the observer: realize that it is the body walking and you are merely an observer. While eating, stop! Become the observer. The body eats. You are merely observing. While attending to the customers in your shop, stop! Become the observer. Do not get so engrossed as to forget the observer. Take hold of yourself time and again. It will require a continuous effort. You will find, by and by, that the effort becomes easier day by day; now and again you will get flashes of 'pure consciousness'. When 'pure consciousness' comes easily in the daytime you can gradually utilize it in your dreams. Then when you are about to fall asleep let the last thought in your mind be: ”I am the observer”. As sleep overcomes you let this thought reverberate in your mind: ”I am the witness, I am the witness...” And thus you fall asleep. You will not be able to catch the moment when sleep comes and the repetition stops. If you cultivate the feeling till you fall asleep the feeling will continue into sleep, for it is only the body that sleeps. As you cultivate this feeling more and more, one night you will suddenly become conscious of the observer in your sleep. And as soon as you become aware of the observer a rare thing happens – dreams vanish. Dreams occur only because of your unconsciousness. Now nothing and nobody can make you unaware, unconscious. He who awakens even for a moment in his sleep, his unawareness is gone forever. The day you awaken in your sleep you become a yogi. You cannot become a yogi by performing asanas. These are merely exercises. They are good and useful to keep the body healthy, but if you take them to be the true yoga then you are deluded. Yoga means: the art of awakening in sleep. Thus he who awakens is a yogi. Osho ~ The Great Path

To repeat your question: What will actually bring you happiness, bliss and fulfillment? Answer: Loving. To be free from fear. Which is manifested in such things as greed, want, validation, etc. These are all forms of tension. To be loving, unconditionally, requires total release of tension. No fear. So one can open their heart like a blossom of radiance. A self-development goal, in this regard, would be to be fearless. Which is manifested as being soft, open, allowing, accepting, forgiving, tolerant, patient, and listening, because all these traits is what truth is. And it's full expression is unconditional love.

I don't really believe that it will get more boring as we experience more of life. All that time would allow more time for the pursuit of enlightenment. I bet I could reach some kind of level no one had with enlightenment if I could live forever. Imagine the bliss. Also, the world is getting more complex as the days go on. Advancements in knowledge are improving. In Leonardo da Vinci's time, there could be renaissance people — people who are masters of several subjects. But as the years go by — people need to specialize more as it's harder and harder to master fields where information is growing rapidly. The most intelligent people in the world don't seem to have a problem of being bored from their speed in learning — there's always something interesting added to. With all that time — I can help out with solutions to world problems. As each generation comes, each generation has to learn the knowledge of its predecessors as they die off.. But if I live forever — I can just master knowledge and wisdom continuously. How awesome would that be?

@Annetta All hopes are false. To hope is to be false. So it is not a question of creating false hopes: whatsoever you can hope will be false. Hope comes out of your falsity of being. If you are real there is no need for any hope. Then you never think about the future, about what is going to happen. You are so real, so authentic that the future disappears. When you are unreal then the future becomes very significant, then you live in the future. Then your reality is not here and now, your reality is somewhere in your dreams. And you make those dreams look real because through those dreams you gain your reality. As you are, you are unreal. That's why so much hoping goes on. All hopes are false; you are real. My whole effort is how to throw you to yourself. And the ego is all false hopes combined together. Ego is not a reality, it is the collectivity of all your dreams, of all that is unreal, of all that is false. The ego cannot exist in the present. Look at this phenomenon. The ego exists either in the past or in the future, never here and now - never, never. That is impossible. Whenever you think of the past, the ego comes, the I comes. Whenever you think of the future, the I comes. But when you are here, not thinking of past and future, where is your I? Sitting under a tree, not thinking of past and future, just being there, where are you? Where is the I? You cannot feel it. It is not there. The ego has never existed in the present. Past is no more, future is yet to be. Both are not. Past has disappeared, the future has not yet appeared. Both are not. Only the present is and in the present nothing like the ego has ever been found. So when I say drop the ego, what do I mean? I am not giving you a new hope, I am taking all your hopes away. And that is the difficulty; you live through the hope, so you feel that if all hopes are taken away you will be dead. Then the question will arise: Why live? For what? Why move from one moment to another? For what? The goal has disappeared with the disappearance of the hope. So why go on and on if there is nowhere to reach? You cannot live without hope. That's why it is so difficult to drop the ego. Hope has become synonymous with life. So whenever a man is hoping he appears to be more vital, appears to be more alive, appears to be very strong. When he is not hoping he appears to be weak, depressed, thrown back to himself, not knowing what to do, where to go. And whenever there is no hope you feel meaninglessness come into you. Immediately you create another hope; a substitute is created. If one hope is frustrated, immediately another is substituted - because you cannot live in the gap. You cannot live hopelessly .And I tell you that that is the only way to live. Without any hope, life is real, for the first time life is authentic. So the second thing to be understood is: when I say it is easy to drop the ego, I don't mean that it will be easy for you to drop it; I mean it is easy to drop it because the very phenomenon of ego is so unreal. If the ego is false, how can it be difficult to drop it? If the dream is just a dream, how can it be difficult to come out of it? If it was real, then there would have been difficulty .If a dream is just a dream, where is the problem to come out of it? You can come out! The dream cannot catch hold of you. The dream cannot prevent you. The dream cannot become a barrier. The dream has no force - that's why we call it a dream. It is easy to come out of a dream. That's what I mean when I say it is easy to drop the ego. But I don't mean that it will be easy for you, because the dream is still a reality for you, it is not a dream. The ego is not false to you, it is the only reality. Everything else is false. We are living around the ego. We are seeking more and more egotistical journeys - somebody through wealth, somebody through status, power, prestige, somebody through politics, somebody through religion, priesthood. There are millions of ways. But the end, the result, the goal, is the same: seeking more and more the I, seeking more and more the ego. To you it is a reality, to you I say it is the only reality. The false has become the real. The shadow has become the substance. That's why it is difficult - not difficult because ego is very powerful, no; it is difficult because you still believe in it, in its power. If you believe in it, it is going to be difficult, because on the one hand you want to drop it, and on the other hand you go on clinging to it. It is going to be difficult .When I say to you it is a dream, you want to believe it because you have suffered so much through it, because you feel the truth of what I am saying. If you feel the truth of what I am saying you will drop it immediately. You will not ask how. There is no how to it. You see the point and you drop it. You don't see the truth of what I am saying. When I say it is not realized that the ego is false and can be dropped, when I say that the ego can be dropped, you create a hope out of it. Because you have been suffering so much through it, you create a hope that if the ego can be dropped then all suffering will be dropped. You become happy with this hope. I am not creating the hope, you are creating the hope. I am simply stating a fact that this is the construction of the ego. This is how an ego is structured, this is how an ego is created and this is how it can be dropped! And because it is false, no effort is needed. Just seeing the point it disappears. A man is running, scared, afraid to death, and running because of his own shadow. You stop him and tell him: You are foolish! This is your own shadow - nobody is following you and nobody is going to murder you. There is nobody except you. You have become scared of your own shadow. But once you start running the shadow also runs faster. The faster you run, the faster the shadow follows. Then the logical mind can say that you are in danger. And the logical mind will say: If you want to escape run faster and faster. But whatsoever you do the shadow will be following you. And if you cannot get rid of it, you will get more and more scared. You are creating the whole thing out of yourself. But if I say to you: This is just a shadow, nobody is following you, and you realize the point, you look at the shadow and you feel the point, will you ask me how to drop this shadow? Will you ask about some technique, method, some yoga, how to drop it? You will simply laugh. You have dropped it! In the moment you see that this is just a shadow and nobody is following you, it has been dropped already. There is no question of how. You will have a good laugh. The whole thing was nonsense. And the same happens with the ego. If you can see the truth of what I am saying, the thing has happened. In the very seeing of it the thing has happened. There is no more how to it .If you still ask how, the thing has not happened and you have not seen the point - but you have created a hope out of it. Because you have been suffering through this ego, you have always wanted to drop it, but this want has always been half of your mind. All your suffering has come through the ego, but all your pleasures have also come through the ego. A crowd applauds you, appreciates you - you feel good. That is the only bliss you have known. Your ego rises high, reaches to a peak, becomes an Everest. You enjoy it! And then the crowd condemns you and you feel hurt. The crowd becomes indifferent; you are crushed by it. You fall into a valley, a depression. You have been gaining pleasure through the ego, you have been suffering through it. Because of suffering you want to drop it, but because of pleasures you cannot drop it. So when I say that the ego can be dropped easily, hope is created in you. Not that I am creating it, your greed does that. It doesn't become a realization, it becomes a new greed, a new search for gratification. You feel that now there is a way, and there is a man who can help you to drop the ego and all the misery that ego creates. But are you ready to drop all the pleasures that the ego creates too? If you are ready it is such an easy thing - just like dropping a shadow. But you cannot half drop it, and you cannot half carry it. Either the whole will go or the whole will cling to you. This is the problem and this is the difficulty. All your pleasures and all your sufferings are related to only one phenomenon; you want to preserve the pleasures and you want to drop the sufferings. You are asking the impossible. Then it is difficult. Not only difficult, it is impossible. It is not going to happen to you. Whatsoever you do will be futile, no result will come of it. You create hope out of it, a heaven, the intense blissfulness of a Buddha. Listening to me or listening to a Jesus or a Buddha, hope is created. But I am not creating it, you are creating it. You are projecting hope on it. And this is the problem, the complexity: every hope is food for the ego again. Even this hope of reaching a paradise, a heaven, becoming enlightened, is a hope. And every hope is food for the ego. Who is trying to become enlightened? The one who is trying to become enlightened is the problem. Nobody ever becomes enlightened. Enlightenment happens, but nobody ever becomes enlightened. When the room is empty, enlightenment happens. When there is nobody to reach enlightenment, enlightenment is there. Because of our language, because of the duality of the language, whatsoever is said about such deep things becomes false. We say: Gautam Buddha became enlightened. This is false. Gautam Buddha never became enlightened. Gautam Buddha was the unenlightenment. When he was not there, when he became absent, enlightenment happened. When suddenly one day he realized that he was following an absurd pattern, when he realized: I am the problem, so whatsoever I do will create more problems.... It is not a question of doing right or wrong, this or that. WHATSOEVER you do will strengthen the ego. Once Buddha realized this - but this realization took many years of effort - when he realized that: Whatsoever I do will help my ego more and more, he simply dropped doing. In that moment of realization he simply became a non-doer, absolutely inactive. Remember, this is the problem: you can even create activity out of your inactivity, or you can create activity just to help inactivity come to you. But then you miss. You can stand still, you can sit silently, but if you are making an effort to stand still, your standing is false. You are not standing, you are moving. If you are sitting silently and there is effort, if you are trying to be silent, that silence is false. You are not silent. When Buddha realized that he was the problem, and that every activity of his gave more substance to the ego, he simply dropped. Then he was not making any effort to create a non-active state. He was not doing at all. Whatsoever was happening was happening. The wind was blowing, and the tree must have been dancing; then came the full moon, and the whole existence was celebrating. And the breathing coming in, going out, and the blood circulating in the veins, and the heart beating, and the pulse - and everything was happening! But he was not doing anything. In this non-doing Gautam Siddhartha disappeared. By the morning there was no one to receive enlightenment, but enlightenment was there. Under that bodhi tree a vacant vehicle was sitting - breathing of course, heart beating of course, better than ever. Everything functioning perfectly, but no doer there. Blood circulating, the whole existence around - alive, dancing. Every atom in Buddha's body dancing, alive. It had never been so alive, but now energy moving of its own accord - nobody pushing it, nobody manipulating it. Buddha became a white cloud. Enlightenment happened. It can happen to you also, but don't create any hope out of it. Rather, seeing the point, drop all hopes. Become hopeless, perfectly hopeless. It is difficult to become perfectly hopeless. Many times you reach hopelessness but it is never perfect. One hope drops, you feel hopelessness. But immediately, to cover it up, you create another hope. And hopelessness is gone. People go on moving from one master to another; that is movement from one hope to another. They go to one master with hopes that he will give through his grace, that through his energy the thing will happen. Then they try, then they wait, with a very strained mind, because a mind which hopes can never be at ease; with a very impatient mind, because a mind which is filled with hope cannot be patient. And then they start feeling uneasy because the thing is not happening. So this master is wrong, they must move to someone else. This is not movement from one master to another, this is movement from one hope to another. People move from one religion to another; there are conversions just because of hope. You can go on doing it for many, many lives. You have been doing that. Now, try to see the point! It is neither a question of a master nor a question of a right method. It is a question of a direct insight, an immediate penetration into the phenomenon of what is happening, of why you hope, of why you can't be without hope. And what have you gained out of all your hoping? See it. It drops by itself. You are not even required to drop it. That's why I say it is easy, and I know well it is very difficult. Difficult because of you, easy because of itself. The phenomenon is easy, you are difficult. And this can happen any moment. When I say this can happen any moment, I mean the phenomenon of enlightenment, of egolessness, is not caused by anything. No cause is needed. It is not an outcome of many causes, it is not a by-product. It is simple insight. It can happen to a sinner; it may not happen to a saint. So no necessary condition is needed really. If he can see, it can happen even to a sinner. If he becomes hopeless, if he feels that there is nothing to be gained and achieved, if he comes to see that the whole thing is just an absurd game, it can happen .It may not happen to a saint because the saint goes on trying to achieve. He is not yet hopeless. This world has become futile, but another world has become meaningful. He realizes that he has to leave this earth, but there are heavens beyond - he has to reach there. And even people near a Jesus or Buddha go on asking things like this. Just on the last night when Jesus was going to be caught and the next day killed, his disciples asked him: Master, tell us. In the Kingdom of God, when you are sitting on the right side of God's throne, what will our positions be there? Where will we be sitting, in what order? God sitting on his throne, Jesus on his right side, the only begotten Son, and then these twelve disciples: Where will we be sitting and what will be the order? People around Jesus asking such a foolish question! But this is how human mind is. They don't ask anything of this world - they have become beggars - but they ask of the other world. They are not really beggars, they are hoping. They have staked this world, but it is a bargain; where will we be there? Who will be sitting next to you? There must have been competition among those twelve disciples. There must have been politics, ambition, somebody up, somebody down, somebody becoming the chief. There must have been much conflict, inner politics, undercurrents of violence and aggression. Even with Jesus one starts hoping. Hope is deep-rooted in you. Whatsoever is said, you convert it into a hope. You are a hope-creating mechanism, and this hope-creating mechanism is the ego. So what is to be done? In fact, there is nothing to be done. You only need clearer eyes, more perceptive eyes, more penetrating eyes. All that is needed is to have a fresh look about you, your being, at whatsoever you have been doing, hoping - a fresh look. And I say to you, in that fresh look, in that innocent look, ego drops by itself, of its own accord. It is the easiest phenomenon, and at the same time the most difficult. But remember well, I am not creating any hope in you. Osho ~ My Way The Way of the White Clouds

Meditation is just a tool, albeit a very effective one! In the end it is not about meditation but about YOU! The greatest benefit that can occur from meditation is the realization that you don't need any benefits because everything is perfect just as it is. More shiny benefits I experienced: Clarity, peace of mind, states of flow (in day to day life, bliss states, tranquility, insights, awakening, concentration, relaxation, having a thing in my life that is independent from outer circumstances Tip 1: From the place you are at, I would say it is best to get motivated by those shiny benefits. Just keep in the back of your mind that in the end it is not about them. They come as a reward of your willingness to look at yourself very very very closely and be brutally honest with yourself. Once you experience those benefits and you cling to them, then what you should look at next is, "What is the root of you wanting to hold on to those benefits". Tip 2: As I said meditation is just a tool. In the end it is about what you do (or not do) with what you see while you meditate. Enlightenment can occur after 2 years of meditation or you can meditate for 40 years and still cling to ideas, concepts and beliefs. Tip 3: Start out with developing your concentration abilities. Which means choose an object to focus on (breath, candle, fingertips ...) and focus on it for a given time period. When your mind wanders and you realize it. Focus back on the object. Don't get angry with yourself, be gentle and practice daily

That which can be said can be said through prose. How will you say that which cannot be said if you don't have poetry? It is the language of what cannot really be said, that language that you speak so as not to have to be completely silent, the language of emotion and ecstasy. THESE SMALL POEMS OF IKKYU may not be very poetic - in fact, R. H. Blyth, writing about these DOKA of Ikkyu, says: "Ikkyu's little poems are not of great poetical value, yet they portray for us a man of deep sincerity, too honest perhaps to be a great Lyrical poet." The purpose is not poetry. The purpose is to convey something which cannot be conveyed through ordinary language. The poetry is being used as a vehicle, remember it. Don't think in terms of literature: think in terms of ecstasy. Take it easy ~ Vol 1 ~ Osho You can find in Buddha's utterances, poetry—bound to be there. Many times while Buddha is expressing himself, he becomes poetic. The realm of ecstasy, the realm of ultimate knowing, is so beautiful, the temptation is so much to become poetic, the beauty is such, the benediction is such, the bliss is such, one starts talking in poetic language. But Patanjali resists that. It is very difficult. No one has been able to resist. Jesus, Krishna, Buddha they all become poetic. The splendor, the beauty, when it explodes within you, you will start dancing, you will start singing. In that state you are just like a lover who has fallen in love with the whole universe. Yoga: The Alpha and the Omega ~ Osho Whenever an enlightened person speaks, whatsoever he speaks is poetry and beautiful. Just the way he is, whatsoever comes out of him resounds him, carries him, the fragrance. But that is not to the point. Don’t be lost in the poetry, because poetry belongs to the form and the truth is formless. The way Sosan says things is beautiful and poetic, but remember, don’t be lost in his poetry. Don’t be lost in the poetry of the Upanishads, of the Gita, of the sayings of Jesus. In itself the form is beautiful but that is not to the point. Move into what the content is, not the container. Hsin Hsin Ming: The Book of Nothing ~ Osho Only poetry can give a few glimpses of the unknown.It is said that wherever Buddha moved, trees would start blooming out of season. Now, this is poetry, pure poetry; it did not happen as a fact. But this shows something; there is no other way to say it. It says whenever Buddha is contacted, even trees start blooming out of season — so what to say about man?

All fears and doubts you may carry will come up, sooner or later, when having a "bad trip". Something like that: Some time ago, my tripsitter left the room for 15 min to have a smoke, and my mood hit rock bottom. I was 100% sure she is calling the cops and the mental hospital right now because Iam going insane, my family will know, everyone will know. Life is over, no way out, pure existential terror. This was on a high dose of shrooms, though. Still, made me stronger If you are ready for some distress (but also heavenly bliss and beauty), start low. Get educated about the substance first. Inner work certainly is requiered, especially if you have any sort of trauma or mental problems.

Well, yesterday night I got a message from @Leo Gura - while watching the 5th season of House of Cards - in which he asked me how much 5-MeO-DMT trips I needed to wake up. After answering his question I shared with him a short version of the story how it all happened -- how I woke up. He suggested then that I should share this with you guys to inspire and educate you. And although it's still strange for me to talk about it in detail, it's the right thing to do. Just a year ago I had one wish and one wish only: To know exactly how it is like. And I will give my best shot in trying to articulate it. Before I start though, I will give you some perspective where I'm coming from at this. What my background is, because that's utterly important if you want to understand how my journey took place and how the dynamics of the awakening worked. +++ My Background: How I Got Introduced To Self-Actualization / Enlightenment +++ So let's go back two years. I'm 19 years old, sitting in my old room in my parents house in the night watching Leo's first video on enlightenment. At that time, I moved to Berlin, began my studies and I felt completely fucked up. I mean, my life in general worked out. My studies were going great, I moved to the city that I wanted to live in, ... . But I was feeling just shitty and insecure. I got bullied when I was 12-14 years old for making crappy rap music and it seemed that all that fear and insecurity from that time started to bubble up. I had a chronic feeling of being overwhelmed with my life, being anxious because of that and I didn't have the courage to speak about it to someone because I was deeply convinced that it would make me seem weak and like a victim - and I could not allow that. So, if you asked a friend of mine at that time, he would've described me as this charismatic, confident dude whose life is going pretty well. That's what I pretended to be on the outside. I am pretty charismatic and confident - so that's not a lie - but I used it as a shield so that people wouldn't notice what is going on with me. Coming back to the night in my parents house where I watched the first enlightenment video, I'm just like: "That's my last chance. I have to try this, if this works (and I just believed Leo at that time because I resonated with his style of teaching) I can live in peace." I hated myself at that time, hated who I was and how my life went, so it seemed like a good idea to kill this guy called Azrael. Also, I was fascinated by the idea that this could be possible. I had never heard about the concept of enlightenment before and although I was deeply interested in psychology / philosophy and naturally way too curious about this world, I had kind of given up on ever really knowing what is going on here. This seemed like a solution to that as well. So, I started to meditate the next day. +++ My Journey: How I Made It Happen +++ I have one big advantage over other people and that is: I get fascinated with stuff pretty deeply. Like, when there is a topic that I'm interested in I melt into that. I will research everything that there is about it, look at all the experts in the field, fall platonically in love with them, mimic how they talk and think, what they are interested in. I will live in that dream of that fascination. I will think about it all the day, associate everything that I do with it and make it my thing. That's basically me. That's why I am so young and so old at the same time. Because I live that shit. And as you can guess, I did the same stuff with my journey. I meditated, self-enquired, contemplated and tried to wrap my head around it. In the first year I was just very motivated and tried to get it all in. I knew nothing about it and I wanted to "get in there". So what happened? I actually began to feel better. I had my first realizations, I had cool meditations, began to experience my first mystical experiences and started to do psychedelics - mostly LSD and DMT. So, a year goes by and I'm sitting at home. I moved a few months before that to a new apartment and Leo just released his video on "Free Will". Still, one of my favourites of all time. After I watched the video I meditated on the question "What is going to happen next?" for an hour. In that meditation a very strange thing happened. It felt like something cracked in my head and a lot of thoughts came up. I finished the meditation, began to cook something and noticed for the first time that I am able to listen to my thoughts while knowing that I don't say them myself. Looking back at that, I think it was the point at which my unconscious opened a gateway to my conscious awareness and started to really process some shit. After that, the most horrifying year of my entire life started. My anxiety increased to a top, my unconscious thoughts increased to a top and just hypnotized me all day long. I just couldn't stay mindful. I was scared to leave the house because I was hyper-sensitive about everything. I was a mess. I was so fucked up that I doubted that this is still purging and I sometimes assumed that I am just mentally ill. That I'm a schizophrenic, with PTSD, anxiety disorder and paranoid. That's basically a good description on how I felt for most of the days. At that time, I had probably the deepest realizations. Funnily, if you are in such a bad state you grow a lot and pretty fast because you are meta-analysing yourself all the time (because you are so fucked up) and through that you naturally have a lot of realizations and crazy experiences. From time to time it would stop for 1-2 weeks and I would have deep moments of bliss and clarity. Then the roller-coaster would start all over again and it would get worse. Just a big fucking mess. Needless to say that this was also the time in which I tried everything. Every kind of meditation you know, every kind of teaching that is out there, any psychedelic that I could get my hands on. I was on it. I tried it, analysed and tried to use it to get me out of that horrible state. As I will later state, this time was the time in which my mind began to awaken. I just wasn't really aware of that because simultaneously it was flooded by so many disturbing thoughts and my body was fucked up with so many tensions and bad emotions. This cycle basically kept going for the whole year, intensified and lowered, intensified and lowered. In the summer I got tired of it. I got tired of feeling so bad. I even had suicidal thoughts sometimes (which then freaked me out even more). So I stopped seeking. I still committed to the practice, still did my thing but I just gave up that this would ever stop. I just couldn't see how. In the autumn and winter of that year I started fucking around with 5-MeO-DMT and shrooms. I also started using HoloSync. At that time I had some interesting changes happening. After my first 5-MeO-DMT sessions the tensions in my head completely vanished. That was nice but I was still in pain, still in fear. I also didn't have the nice blissful phases any more, I just felt mostly tired and sick of this shit. That was basically my journey. A big fucking mess. A lot of trial and error, a lot of dedication and fascination. +++ The Awakening of The Mind +++ In the summer of this horrifying year my mind awakened. I had a few awakening experiences before that but non that lasted. In the summer I had one Kundalini awakening. I just sat on my couch, was pretty exhausted and tired that day and thought about a girl that had rejected me at that time. Suddenly this ball of energy came shooting up my spine and into my head where it exploded. The first thought I had was: "Fuck, am I going to die right now?" It was pretty intense. After that I took a walk and was just completely shocked and fascinated with what happened and how I felt. All the anxiety and attachment was gone for this evening. And I could recognize the source. I could recognize where everything is coming from and who I am. I went to a buddy later that evening and it felt like he was a creature - not a human. It was crazy. The days after that experience the state completely vanished and I went back into my fucked up mode. However, my sense of self was now completely rooted in source. I could - if I wanted to - know who I truly was. It was clear. But at that time, I still thought that this cannot be it, because I still felt so damn bad. I didn't know that my body had to awaken as well to be completely rooted in it and to feel the peace and calmness of the awakening. +++ The Awakening of The Body +++ The awakening of the mind is basically realizing who you really are. Being able to recognize source. That's great, but only half of the deal. You can be able to recognize that with your ego still intact raping you like nothing changed. And you won't be able to realize what really happened because your ego is still there. The daemon is still there. Now, here is the story of how my ego integrated and how it brought me into total balance. Roughly two weeks ago, I'm laying in my bed waking up (normally). It's a regular morning in Berlin. I'm still a little bit tired and dreamy, thinking about my daily meditation. And I'm like: "Ah, I don't wanna meditate. I just wanna sleep today." I'm pretty grumpy in the mornings btw. This is not the first morning that I think that way and so I begin to think a little bit. Why do I don't want to meditate any more? This is my favourite and most intimate thing I do every day. And then I'm thinking about the last couple of weeks. How do I feel? How do I feel? I feel pretty good. Wait a minute, I felt good for a pretty long time now. Why am I not thinking about spirituality any more? I used to think about this every day 24/7? Why am I not thinking that much any more in general? I'm pretty relaxed all the time. Where are my chronic tensions in my abdomen? I haven't felt them now for ... Wait a minute. And it goes on like this. That morning I realised that I had awakened. It was the strangest thing. I wasn't able to tell for some days what really changed, I just knew that I didn't feel bad any more and that all my motivation to do my practice just disappeared. (I still did it of course - gotta be disciplined with this and not listen to your thoughts.) After some time I began to think about myself again because I wanted to know what changed. A few nights ago I skyped with my good friend @Huz and I came up with a metaphor that describes it pretty well. +++ The Metaphor: How It Feels to Wake Up +++ So, in the normal non-integrated state of egoic consciousness - wow that's a phrase that sounds pretty evil just writing it - it's like you have an invisible suit that you wear at all times. This suit has one property and one property only. It makes it hard for sensations, emotions and feelings to get out of your body. So now with having this suit on, when you have a sensation or an emotion that goes through your body it will naturally be resisted by the suit and so ping back into your system. It's like there is a resistance through that invisible suit. So that sensation or emotion will go another time through your body and by that amplify the effect it has on you. Because it cannot get out easily. It might get out after some time, depending on how strong your suit is, but it's hard for the poor little thing. Through that you tend to "attach" to what is going on with you. Even more, you begin to identify with what is going on inside yourself because the effect is so strong and always repeats because of the resistance. The same thing is happening with your thoughts. You have a thought and it cannot get out because of your suit. It gets back. Makes another round, triggers other thoughts that cannot get out that trigger even more thoughts. Through that a constant chatter of thoughts is made possible. As you start your practice you begin to unconsciously work on your suit. As you purge more and more shit its resistance gets weaker and more thoughts can go out of your system at first. Then, as this happens a lot of the repressed thoughts are now able to release themselves and your system is flooded by them. Because your suit is weaker they can get out but because of the volume of the repressed thoughts that are now set free it seems like you are regressing - although you are not. Through that process you might be able at some time to recognize who you really are because so much changes inside of yourself. That's great and that's what happened when my mind awakened - however the suit was still on - although weakened. When the body awakens what basically happens is that the suit looses its last resistance and falls off. Through that your body is now able to think and process emotions naturally without unconscious resistance of the suit. This of course implicates that you loose most of your inner tensions and that the volume of your thoughts go down, because they are not amplified any more. It also implicates that you are able to recognize who you are much easier because the strong identification with your sensations, emotions and thoughts is released and really everything that you are aware of finds a perfect balance. This also explains why I did not instantly recognize what happened to me. My meta-analysis, my pain, my tensions, my thought stories just left like a daemon that raped me and through that I just was and am in a state of peace that is not questioning itself all the time and is not trying to get away from itself. I hope this makes sense. +++ The Aftermath: What Now Then? +++ Well, I don't now, to be honest. Right now, I am pretty relaxed. I still do my normal day to day shit, I still have all my preferences, dreams and desires. I don't want to get away from myself any more and I know who I am. I am quite empty. I guess that's a phase in the beginning. I will see where it takes me. I will commit to my practice and see what comes next. I hope that I am able to find a lot of more metaphors in the future about this and I'd like to write more about it to help you guys and make me understand it on an intellectual level. One thing that is very important to understand here is the following: In all my seeking, non-seeking and whatever I did I always made up this picture in my head of "how it would be if I'm there". And that's natural in the non-integrated state of egoic consciousness - oh I love this phrase. I think that this transition took place because when I chased this picture of "how it would be" I was at the same time doing all the work that unconsciously set up all the dynamics and mechanisms to transform my whole being. It took the time that it needed and it didn't give a fuck how I felt about it. When it was time it first awakened my mind and then later awakened the body and when that happened and both came into balance it was just like the picture dissolved and I was shot from my path into a big fucking ocean in which I have to now find out how to swim. It's like I just completed this level and am now at square one again - just in a different world. Well let's find out what's going on in here, right? Because the levels never stop. That's the fun of the game, I guess. I'm thankful to all the members on this forum that I had and have great conversations with. Especially I'm thankful for @Leo Gura who introduced me to all of this and is a constant inspiration, source of education and a fucking pain in the ass to be more committed, @jjer94, @Ayla and @cetus56 who made me realize so much with their beautiful writing and lastly @Huz my great good friend from the UK with whom I have the best conversations about all of this and who is always listening and responding to my crazy voice messages. Cheers, Az P.S. Feel free to ask me whatever is on your mind about all of this. I'm happy to help and to further clarify what I stated here. I will - in the future - post a lot more about the techniques that I used, about more of the dynamics of the process, new trip reports and all the other good shit that we all love to talk about.

Hi Guys! I became more of a reader than a writer in this little community, but the experience I had while combining these two psychedelics was extremely unexpected and remarkable. I need to communicate this to you. Please keep an open mind while reading this, i promise to keep it as short as possible. What did I take? 5 gramms cracker -dry shrooms (regular cubensis), a nice dose by itself 5 gramms of syrian rue seeds, made into a tea, one hour before the shrooms. This is a legal plant you can buy everywhere. Psychoactive by itself, natural anti-depressant, MAO-Inhibitor (Please google that stuff before trying anything! Research is a must here). Previous experiences: I did this combination before, 3 gramms of shrooms + 3 gramms of rue. It was roughly comparable to a "regular" shrooms trip, a bit more mellow and clear, but came in "shockwaves" of mind boggling intensity which left me laughting, screaming and speechless at the same time, basically an insane rollercoaster ride of insights, feelings, emotions, love. A great experience overall which lasted 12 hours total, and much stronger than a regular 3 gramm dose of shrooms would have been (tried it, same batch). Actual report: Ambitiously, i upped the dose to 5gr/5gr. Online reports suggested that all hell would brake loose on me. The come-up was totally normal, the energy boiled up in me, everything was as you would expect it to be at the beginning of a heavy dose. I was meditating as always, exited and a little scared, ready to face the first crushing wave of psychedelic mindfuck, or whatever the shrooms wanted me to see. My mind was going increasingly wild, lots of visuals etc. Then, Nothingness happend. I went back to baseline. The usual effects of the drugs almost completely disappeared, and my mind was totally silent. I felt complete! bliss and peacefulness, but not in a drug-induced way, but one that was unmistakably grounded in reality. PLEASE notice: I was able to think perfectly straight, pretty much acted and felt like a sober person, but all that monkey-mind was utterly crushed. I was super aware of everything that was going on. All my concepts and ideologies where thrown out of the window, for good, I was unable to even access them. This was awesome beyond belief, and I instinctively knew: Iam enlightended! Please, dont get me wrong: This was not a conceptual idea, I did not even think about enlightenment for days before this experience. I just knew that this is the real deal. I kept on meditating for 5 hours straight, only going to the toilet once in a while, feeling totally in sync with the universe. I looked up into the sky the whole time, feeling the connection and closeness to... everything. I was physically unable to create deeper concepts and forced to live in the now. The next five hours, I wandered trough a huge, beautiful graveyard with my tripsitter. It was... heartbreaking. You cant imagine the beauty of nature if you are unable to make concepts of it! I felt in love with the beauty of trees in the sunset, my tripsitter, and myself, over and over again. We had deep and insightful conversations, with complete ego-less talk, at least on my side. What a difference! I was here. in the now, with a direct connection to "God" (=nothingness), with no signs of a regular "Trip" at all. Aftermath To keep it short, the drugs wore off (sure they did), but I still feel the effects today (Two weeks after), truly life-changing stuff. I finally know what it physically feels like to be "Awake" and in the now. I keep practicing this state, especially when surrounded by people, chaos, and life. This is the real work! Meditating when going on with daily life was never more possible for me. I no longer feel that I am this person writing here, and totally fine with it. I "chase" after every little glimpse of this enlightened state, whenever I can. Monkey Mind is back, but life has become a lot better (while staying the same, curiously). This description does not give credit to the experience. At all. But sharing seemed appropriate. Have a wonderful weekend guys.

I don’t even know where to start with all of this. Just the thought of writing down what I went through seems so incredibly ridiculous and meaningless. I do it anyway as a form of contemplation and sorting things out in my messy fucked up head. I took 3g of dried shrooms in a tea. I was very excited and had also a bit of fear in the back of my mind. I tried to run from it, it felt like a very heavy pressure. Like it became physically present. Instead of sweeping it under the rug, I decided to face it rightaway. Then everything became blurry and frantic. I stood up and started walking through the house. It was a very fast paced, possessed and almost maniac type of walking. Circling between the livingroom, the kitchen and my room, aimlessly. I felt like something was running after me and constantly watching me. I repeatedly heard knocking on the door, footsteps on the next floor. I felt observed and the constant urge to check my surroundings. Actually pretty much the definition of paranoid. I was scared to my bones. (Of What? That someone could see me being in such a state of madness? Of never coming back to normal again? What the fuck is normal?) I talked to myself in the mirror: who am I? What is this? What am I doing? Where am I going? Is there somewhere to go? Am I going insane? What is insanity? Am I destined to be insane forever? I found myself asking WHAT THE FUCK? repeatedly. Nothing made sense anymore. Then I felt this very primal fear of being „different“, being labeled as „crazy“. And I felt crushed: does what others think about me still affect me so much? But admitting this extreme fear of being a social outcast, as much as it hurt, as much it felt like I was physically and mentally going insane, was also a heavenly release which made me bend on my knees. I don’t know why, but this bending on my knees seems to be a returning pattern in my trip. I often found myself on my knees, completely overwhelmed. Times crying out my pained soul, times laughing tears of joy. Which by the way merged into one ecstatic feeling. On my highest peaks sadness became joy, pain became sweet, my desperation became security and my deepest fear became absolute bliss. I apologize for my report being frantic and hard to follow logically, but the thought of sorting everything and writing things down in a chronological order just seems so ridiculous to my eyes know. At the beginning of the trip I repeatedly looked at my watch, to check how long I was into it. I suddenly felt like a fucking slave to everything: my social obligations (friends, family), the educational system (my professors, my exams, my university), the society as a whole. I felt like I was choking on my time schedule. Like a pressure to DO things. All the time. This constant DOING and being productive (studying, training, even eating and washing myself) made me feel sick and submitted. Most of all I felt a slave to time itself. How silly! To let my life being dictated from something as ridiculous as a clock! I took my watch off and instantly felt freed up. I realized that I don’t do things for the sake of doing them. But for results. I want something from them, I am completely attached to my results like a baby to its fucking blanket. Just realizing how much of a slave to time, others and my own thoughts I am, made me feel so fucking good that I started rolling around on the pavement like a child. It was a constant cycle between searching, wanting, doing, possessing (so fucking painful!) and letting go, absolution and release (such a never ending bliss!) I constantly wanted to write down what I was feeling. I wanted to take all my realizations (so many! they came flying at me like bullets, hitting me everywhere) and bring them to paper. But I failed again and again to label things. No words came to my mind. Absolutely impossible to describe. Then I realized that my need to label things and thoughts was actually destroying them! Taking the beauty out of the experience. (It felt like I finally understood the SPRACHKRISE/SPRACHSKEPSIS Rainer Maria Rilke, Hugo von Hoffmannsthal, Stephan George and Ludwig Wittgenstein where referring to. Better, I didn’t just understand it, I actually experienced that deep loss of words. Words, words, just words. Language completely failing to comprehend experience and BEING) I actually saw myself asking: you? you want to write those things down? and then laughing my arse off of my sheer stupidity. It was an absolute release. I also realized that I am neurotic and perfectionist. Always on the verge of doing, learning, grabbing, labeling. A constant struggle. I need more of this being, just being. It feels so silly to write it down, it seems pathetic and childish, naiv. Everyone is saying just be, carpe diem, be in the moment, just breathe, let go. But no one really, I mean REALLY IS. (just me rightnow writing this down is destroying the sheer nature of being, I know..) Everything in my mind was twisted. Thoughts became physical. I tried to get somewhere with my rational thinking, struggling with understanding. At one point I struggled with my web of beliefs (made out of „logic“) so much that I couldn’t handle it. I was choking on my oh so precious logic and rationality. It was an immense pain. But then I was on the verge…I let go of (thoughts, words, logic, rationality, sanity, knowledge) everything. I found myself rolling on the carpet, surrounded by bliss. I felt invincible. Like nothing could harm me because there simply was no one to harm. When I realized this, I found myself hugging a bucket on the floor, feeling very safe. When I thought I was coming down from the trip, I felt calm. My mind was chaotic, fuzzy, whirling…but it was ok the way it was. I can live with chaos and not knowing. I felt the urge to be outside, in nature. I went on the balcony, took in the bright sunshine, watched the trees moving in the wind. (it was a rather strange weather: hot, sunny, but also stormy.) The trees never looked so green and alive. The colors where saturated, bright. So beautiful. I felt strong. Something in me arouse, like a inherent power. (complete opposite of the fear I felt at the beginning of the trip) it sounds ridiculous, but I felt like a lioness. I started moving my body. Feeling into it. I don’t know if at that point I was still high or not. But I suddenly felt the urge to nourish my body. I ran into the kitchen and started eating fruits: hauled on the floor I ate them with my hands. I felt like a primate. They tasted so sweet, delicious. I was completely lost in the process of eating, like a raw experience of the taste and texture of the food. I had the image of a chimp in my mind. And I absolutely loved it. Then I started dancing. I don’t know if it actually deserves the term „dancing“: I was moving like an animal in the jungle, completely lost in a primal rhythm. It felt natural, just pouring out of me. I just didn’t care anymore at that point. The term which describes it best, is RAW. Well, there is still a lot to process in my mind. Writing it down already helped me a lot. I already feel some 'sober' insights coming to me (where the fuck do they actually come from?): I am neurotic and perfectionist. I constantly want to label everything. I am addicted to thoughts, knowledge and doing. I am a slave to time, schedule, work, and rationality. I really need to just experience things for the sake of experiencing. Detach from results and wants. (the famous l’art pour l’art) I often am uncomfortable in my own body (stiff and afraid of moving, rigid), live too much in my head and worry about others. I need to give this animal urge I have inside of me more freedom. It sounds so silly, but doing that chimp dance took me out of my mental prison (=thoughts). If you came to this point, thanks for reading. Any thoughts? Similar experiences? I feel excited to elaborate all those insights.

I came to this conclusion while rolling. It's literally that simple... but at the same time pretty damn difficult. It was easy to see how much I avoid just being during my peak. It's actually quite funny, when in that state of pure love, happiness, bliss, my ego was constantly on the move to be doing something. Whether it be gritting my teeth, resisting through my body, repeating the same tasks over and over again like opening and closing my laptop, fridge, pantry, running around in circles basically. Why is that I asked? Because we're not content with just straight being yet... haha. So I'm like a fucking bowling ball tumbling through this big hallway of mirrors still trying to seek stuff out. Why though? Anything we try to seek out is already right here right fucking now! I think I am done seeking but only time will tell. It's pretty damn easy to become unconscious of this again, but I'm pretty sure I saw the fork in the road. We are just being, and that is all!

Hello, I have been only reading the forum so far and noticed that there are plenty of knowledgeable people on here so maybe someone will be able to give good advice! My self-development has been going well(ish) with a relatively clear path of education, fixing life parts that need to be fixed, introducing good habits, higher-level consciousness activities etc. I even started getting into more spiritual areas like meditation, retreats, learning about enlightenment etc. The problem I find is that I am sitting on the fence. I can't reconcile this self-development world view with a nihilistic and pragmatic/physical approach to life that I've had more or less since forever. Best summary would be any of Benjamin Smythe's videos saying that essentially "Spiritual people die every day; we just move things around trying to get what we want, most of the time we don't. Nothing and no one will be remembered. Chill out and do what you like". I mean, I really cannot disagree with practical statements like these as I have been thinking this for most of my life (haven't been into religion and spirituality apart from Buddhism). Even though I want to believe in things like Improvement, Life Purpose, Sagehood that we can strive to achieve I very easily get all the way back to "this-is-all-bs and not real, screw the hope-selling industry; I need to chill out and enjoy my life and the things I do". The problem is that this would lead me straight to hedonism and low-consciousness activities like watching tv, partying, chasing material things like health/physique, status and money etc. If I do that I am back to where everyone in modern society is (with the consensus on here that we can do better), maybe with some ability to see it for what it really is. So how do you convince yourself that these ambitious self-development goals are what will actually bring you happiness, bliss and fulfillment?

Hi Leo, Just wanted to say thank you for your video's, 'I' am finally happy and that is down to you and your videos. How did 'I' achieve absolute bliss? 'I' learned as much information as I could, had radical open mindedness and studied with an enlightened master. But 'I' didn't even know that he was enlightened lol. What caused the shift in awareness was your videos, 20 years of unhappiness and someone talking about belief and religion to me. My friend told me about ancient civilisations and how there was one prediction that would happen soon.. 'When world peace is achieved then the world will end'. I could see how she was scared because she believed this, but this statement gave me chills and made me cry. I realised that I have been leaving messages for myself over millions of years. That is why we discover these hidden messages because god is trying to awaken himself. What I didn't do was seek enlightenment at all, but I studied science, quantum physics, energy, and was always 100% in the present moment. I never sought after enlightenment because I am 21 and at university so I have been too focused on my career. But I learned about it through your videos so thank you. I went insane the past 2 days. I thought I was a genius and could change the world. And I can. But everybody can. My family fell out with me and it hurt me deeply. I thought I was going to die because my heart was going so fast and I wanted to change the world. This was because I knew there are infinite possibilities and my actions dictate how my life goes. Stop searching and live the life you want to. Now I am going to follow my dreams and do everything I thought I couldn't in the past. Focus 100% on the present. Learn as much as possible to convince your logical mind. Stop searching and live the life you want to. I have never taken psychedelics or done a meditation retreat. I don't even meditate that often. All 'I' do is learn and focus 100% in the moment. Infinite Love <3

I feel the need to write about this just to get it out of my head. I am sure this may benefit some of you. In this long ass guide I will talk about quite nuanced distinctions and cover the whole topic between the balance of inner and outer work in great detail with quite a few exemples. So let's start right away, shall we ? While it may seem at first that you have found yourself in kindergarden I am simply very methodic and rigorous and prefer to be clear about every notion I will be using for clarity's sake. Introduction As human beings, we have only two options when it comes to doing because we only have : - Our Inner world : Our feelings, level of awareness, skills, mindsets, past, history, knowledge, so on and so forth. - Our external world : our house, car, spouse, cat, the food we eat, the sport we do in the morning, basically everything which is not involved in the inner world of the person, what Eckhart Tolle may call your life situation. I'm stating "our" because we do not care what happens in Africa or with the economy of the village far away in the dunes : only about your life situation. Also, it is important noting that the inside the inner world there is the relationship we have to the external, aka how we relate to your children or spouse, which is internal, while what you maybe have to do with them, aka how to alter your personnal circumstances such a spouse, for instance by divorce, belongs to the external world. (External = outer/ Inner = internal) Problem solving strategies In the same way, our problems may fall into two categories only: A) Internal problems You feel sad or depressed all the time, you have no idea what to do with your life, you can't meditate for more than 3 minutes, you never read, you do not feel satisfied with what is going on, in short, there is some problem in your inner world. B) External problems You have no money, your wife is a whiney bitch, your couch is so shitty you cannot meditate properly, so on and so forth. C) Solutions While there is an endless stream of methods to solve your problems all of those solutions always fall into one of those 4 ways : 1) Solving internal problems externally 2) Solving internal problems internally 3) Solving external problems internally 4) Solving external problems externally Everyone alive is acting upon a % of those four ways in their life. And as you may have guessed only TWO of those are great - the other two ( Spoiler : those which don't match) will RUIN your life. Let's look at those 4 ways in more detail, shall we ? Solving internal problems externally STOP DOING IT. This is the main message of this whole post : do stop solving your internal problems externally. But of course you're not doing that, right ? Or maybe you're just not aware of it ? Do you have any idea why you are doing what you are doing ? For instance, why do you believe you are distracting yourself from ? Why do you want success ? Most of what you are doing IS most likely strying to solve internal problems externally - by changing the external world instead of changing your internal world. Stop it. Solve your inner issues internally. Quick examples : A) You feel like you need to get x, y, z , be it women, cash, or a car, or w/e else so your life feels complete. Otherwise it will never feel complete. B) You need to get into that PhD program or your life will be ruined. C) You are taking a lot of action but see absolutely no change : you've made this or that, you had a lot of different experiences, but inside it still feels like the same old shitty you no matter what. A lesson from transformationnal mastery. I mainly contemplated the sentence " what is internal can only be solved internally" for a long time before I got this insight but some of the ideas came from the transformational mastery by RSD Julien. Okay, look at this : Your internal state is most likely at arround 3/10. 10/10 is happiness, joy and bliss. Which you do not feel yet. All of the garbage, the past experiences, trauma, so on and so forth are mostly subconscious and keep you DOWN at 3/10. So you do feel shitty inside, whether you know it or not, and then, well, what are you trying to do about it ? One thing : RUNNING AWAY By for instance smoking, drinking, playing games, doing this or that, in short, acting in the external world, hoping it will someone change how you feel inside. Inside you do not feel happy, nor fulfilled, joyful, present, etc. and you believe you need something external to fix it. For instance : name something you cannot be happy without. E.g. I cannot be happy if I do not finish my life as a millionaire. Is it gonna make you happy ? You will say yes because you believe it will fix what is inside and make you feel like x or y. But in the end it will always feel the same no matter what you do externally. Always. One of the greatest examples was recently Neil Strauss. He felt he needed to try out polyamory and have a household of three beautiful women. After countless awesome sex experiences he felt into depression because he realized that he was broken. Not the relationships. Not the external. He, inside, was broken. The great distinction : Scarcity VS Abundance The core assumption of the external solving the internal problem is the fact that it cannot be solved inside. E.g. you feel unhappy inside of you and there is nothing that can be done about it : this is scarcity : you feel like unless you DO ( and you have to always be DOING) to feel 10/10, happy, etc. you MUST do and act. It is impossible naturally. Abudance is the opposite : it is recognizing you've been fucking up and telling hold on...those experiences cannot fix me. I have to go inside. Abundance means you feel 10/10 to begin with ( remember when you were playing as a child) but then, a lot of bad things happened : unmet needs, bad parenting, layers and layers of garbage which put you down. So now you feel 3/10 and you've fallen into huge consumerism : do and consume experiences to feel better. You get the hit but nothing really changes. You are always on the run and you're always reinforcing the fact that you are unhappy to begin with, by doing all those things that are supposed to make you happy. how to know you're running away ? The great rule of the thumb ! Whatever state or feeling you are trying to achieve by doing something is escaping from the lack of it internally. You have to go inside and solve that problem inside. You want to feel powerful/x/emotion ? Look inside at your feelings and experiences that made you feel powerless/ x/y/emotion opposite. When you feel like you need something or some external condition, and you need to have it no matter what. Any form of attachement may indicate that. If you feel you need this or x to feel happy you are running away from your own insides. The great solution or cleansing the augean stables. Upon learning this however you will run away, maybe even more xD. You're not gonna be like oh yeah this is cool now let's just solve all of my problems internally and be done with it. You are escaping in the first place because you have no idea how to do the inner work and escaping is just so much easier and comfortable, I mean, what would you choose between : 1) Feeling and processing your old trauma and emotions 2) Having a nice vacation in thailand with hot girls and nice landscapes You do not wanna look inside. You may look at some parts of it and never solve the inner issue because it's really painful to look at. I mean yeah doing real inner work is very painful and rewarding only after a while. Who wants to clean out the augean stables ? Of course you wanna run away. And most people run away forever. And this is not a way to live because you will always cope and never thrive. You will never truly live. Why you actually need to solve this : 1) You will finally thrise and stop running away and coping 2) This is the only way of living truly and authentically While the message is very basic, like do deep inner work, you have to notice where you are running away from it and just doing some stuff on the sidelines instead of handling the real issues. This is very important because as long as you are running away you are desperate and what you do in the world is also coming out of desperation and not insperation. Have you wondered why Leo did a negative value release in the life purpose course ? Exactly for this reason. So it doesn't run you. But the real work goes way deeper. Have you really wondered why you are always coping and not inspired to do shit ? Not inspired to go and realize your life purpose ? Exactly for this reason. It's coming out of desperation. You need your life purpose (or x/y/z) to feel complete, to get meaning, purpose, (solve a series of your internal issues), get more girls, more money, to feel better about yourself. But if you feel happy you will simply share your gift with pure joy and it will be even more rewarding. It does NOT stop at 10/10. At 10/10 THE REAL DEAL begins. You do not feel resistance (or wayyy less). You can slay it. You are giving your gifts and it feels fucking pure. When you feel joy you can finally share joy and find even MORE JOY in sharing. Same for happiness. You do not need anything. You confuse right now desires for wants. Wanting is easy it's this is nice. It doesn't have an attachement/need/cling to it/ the need has. IN short, STOP SOLVING your inner problems externally. But maybe if you are but I need this or that to feel happy, well : you're either gonna self-sabotage yourself because deep down you don't feel like you deserve it and even if you make it you are only going to feel the issue you tried to solve even deeper. If you tried getting a hot girl for the sake of it while it was to feel good about yourself, to feel worthy. You will get her and you will feel even more unwhorthy. And after a few occurences of that well, you will do the inner work. You will drop the scarcity paradigm and handle your inner garbage and finally achieve abundance. After a lot of work. What can be done. 1) Therapy. I find it amazing for exploring and going trough all the trauma inside of you. 2) use the rule of the thumb to identify your issues and work on them internally. 3) Yoga is amazing 4) how to let go and the Julien's program helped me a lot ( I'm not affiliated with him in any way I just liked it because I had all those insights) 5) Pranayama breathing techniques are also amazing 6) How to let go by david hawkins 7) Any painfull real and deep inner work you can do, be it visualisations like the ones leo does, meditations, strange obscure techniques, as long as you are solving internal problems internally it is fine. One key point is not to run away from the problem by doing irrelevant shit on the side. Because if you cannot run away to the next country your mind will find another way to run away from it. I mean, it only wants to protect you. Don't watch the second part it's annoying self promotion but the first part can be great to understand what I'm talking about from another pespective. Learn to slay it Solving internal problems internally Yes, this is what you are supposed to be doing. Quick example : You cat dies and you feel sad. Is it an external or internal problem ? (You feeling sad is internal : the cat dying is not a problem in itself) An internal solution is to handle your sadness, understand how to process your emotions, etc. And external solution is to buy a NEW CAT to fill in that role, or even worse, pretending the old cat is still alive or even doing a ritual to bring the old cat to life. Again, and once more and forever : solve internal problems INTERNALLY. Solving external problems internally I didn't even think this could happen but it does. While most of us run away from problems by acting in the outer world some of us solve problems that can be solved by taking action and acting in the outer world. E.g. Your couch hurts your back . You need to get a new couch and not find a new way to meditate so that your couch gets better. E.g. You have no chemistry with your bitchy and whiney wife but you still keep her arround. You do not need to solve your anger issues but get rid of her. (Although you have deep inner work to do in that case to, to understand why you attracted her, stayed with her, and to check whether you can actually have a successfull relationship). This falls into the category of people who are mentally masturbating a lot and not doing crap. Sometimes you need to go out in the real world and act. This is the balance between theory and practice which you have to tune - Leo talked about that in a recent video so go watch it and handle it. Solving external problems externally You have no chairs in your house so you cannot properly work so you decide that you're gonna learn the ultimate way of the yogi and levitate up to your computer to pursue your life purpose. THis is an absolute no no. Get your ass to ikea and fix this short materialistic problem correctly. Sometimes the external requires external action. You just need to carefully identify what is really an external problem and what is an internal issue. Examples and short case studies All you have to do it determine whether a given problem is external or internal. Remember : inner problems are to be solved internally. External is to be handled on the external too. (I'll maybe add more examples later on - and feel free to ask any questions ) Split the issue : solve the internal : aka learn why you may need or want a girlfriend and solve in internally. solve the external : your sexual needs can be solved only by sex hence go get it - talk to girls, etc. Act in the real world. Endless theory will not help for this. Yes. Progress is very slow. You're doing real deep painful work. It gets a bit easier the more you do it and investment pays off a LOT over time but at the start you have to work a lot. This is no fancy vacation - this is no easy task. You are not hercules and you won't be able to use two rivers to cleanse the stables. You have to take out the garbage. So do the deep inner work. Take out the trash. Do not run away. This is not fun. Not great and not amazing. The real deal is not fancy but is very rewarding. Work at it. Slay it. Do it. Solve the internal - internally ! Best of luck on your path ! Any feedback appreciated

Talks of realms. While you know only this one is pointless, and talks of this realm being a hell. Even more so. Calling this planet, the lives in it, and the suffering in it an illusion. Is itself an illusion. Suffering exists. So do egos. They are very real, however you can get rid of both and live in bliss if you so choose. "After satori one might think mountains are no longer mountains, and trees are no longsr trees, but after enlightenment. Mountains are once again moutains and trees are once again trees"

*points at you* there you are I found you! see? you are right here right now. you are a mind, you are a body, you are suffering and you are bliss, you are your home and your family, you are your town your country the world you are the universe. you are I. you want to stop suffering - I suggest accept it, not in nihilistic glee no. but realise that you have coexisted with it before and yet you remain while it fades in and out of existence. so just allow it to be, notice it but as an observer. be patient with it, meditation at its core is just patience and attention. if you can't exercise that through meditation, practice it whenever you remember it. when you brush your teeth, wait for a meeting, in the moment. over time it will strengthen.

Some help for my low conscious self ❤ You have a resistance to mindfulness; a little resentment. But I think a lot of the time mindfulness is actually the one thing you need. Of course, as will always be said, when you're in it, it feels so much bigger; you can't understand it properly. The painbody: it's like a blaring screetch of stress that blinds you from all proper rationality or sanity and worst of all the only way you can express how it's making you feel when it's absorbed you is with the kind, welcoming words of "FUCK OFF!!" The alternative is silence and stillness. I'm saying this not academically as just words or in theory but from where I am right now: in it. I'll use loads of different words for it: silence, stillness, not thinking, bliss, empty mind, conscious, accepting, surrendering/ed, present, not trapped in the painbody etc. so don't be so tight and cling to certain explanations as if they're all talking about different things. All this advise is always pointing the same way becsuse it comes from truth at some ingredient. Closemindedness is the main stumper here. Anywho, my help for you now is to focus on making your mind still. Your buzzing mind will try to avoid this. There are many ways to stop your mind. One way can be to play music and listen to it, focus on it, and don't expect yourself to feel any certain way about it. I've found myself, when Im feeling shit, not liking music that I usually like, because I'm actually in the back of my head expecting it to make me feel better when I listen to it, but by doing this I'm resisting how I feel at the time of listening to it, telling myself I should feel a certain way, which of course is not what you want to do. So you can use music to slow your head down so you can see how your emotions are going and usually it will be that you are expecting yourself to feel a certain way and are telling yourself off or resisting how you do feel because it's not the "perfect" way you should be feeling. Most of the problem seems to be not accepting how you feel right now, alongside worrying too much and focusing away from right now. Another way is simply just focusing on simply stress management because that's really what's going on: you want reality to be one way but it's not that way so you're freaking out; you feel you don't have control. Focus on your lack of control. Focus on how it makes you feel. Focus on your reluctance to focus on things that will help make you feel better. Just bring your focus to what you're feeling. Don't try to force feelings or hold onto them. But also if they are sticking around, don't try to kick them out; look them up and down. I really don't know what to type to help you but hopefully this can be enough to help you wake up. You already know all you need to know. You know how to get where you want to surrender to. I just hope you're able to when you need to.

Thank you for posting this. I am experiencing a kundalini awakening. It has been going on since November of last year. It has been a slow process and I can't seem to find the help I need around where I live. I felt it first in my third eye, and after that kept feeling each individual chakra every two months. I now feel the energy going through my body but not out of the crown of my head. There have been times where I feel like my head is being operated on and there are moments of bliss and love. Many emotional things are being resolved however I feel like there is so much much more to do. Once an emotion resolves, it feels like a piece of me (my ego) goes away. For me its a struggle because I have two kids and we are trying to move and make decisions but I am just going along with it. What is also confusing is I don't know if I will be awakened and enlightened or in a mental institution for the rest of my life. Does that make sense? My ego is definitely afraid. So once again, thank you for the post.