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So many people on this website seem to be very misguided or misinformed about meditation. The posts seem almost desperate. They want effects, experiences, to get something , anything. It's like they think meditation is some cool novelty fad thing that you do for a little while and then suddenly you get to some eternal place of bliss and happiness with no more problems. They tell how they sit for a week or a few months but they aren't getting what they want. I'm not sure what Leo has taught them in the videos because I don't watch his meditation videos but maybe he needs to set them straight. I have been trying to advise them but I can't keep up with it so I'm not going to read the posts anymore. No sooner have I answered one post to one of these people and another one appears. I think this is what happens when mindfulness/meditation becomes a trendy new object of desire in western culture but the very important foundations such as the 4 noble truths, the 5 hindrances, the 8foldpath, the 5 precepts and the brahma viharas that are meant to be taught with it in Buddhism are left out. When meditation is divorced from its origins in this way it is nothing more than a fad. People just want to launch into a technique and want an instant fix like its a drug or magical commercial product. Fix my life, take away my problems, satisfy me, make me happy, me me me etc Then when they realise it isn't what they thought it was or expected they are confused and dissapointed. This is why so many people do not keep up the practice. All I can suggest for all of you is to be patient, get some proper guidance from a good teacher and read some good dhamma books. Meditation will slowly transform your perspective but accept that you cannot just step to the peak of the mountain in one moment. Meditation can help you to see how craving and aversion will cause you to suffer. The wanting this and that from it is a perfect example of how craving and desire will hinder you. Five hindrances

I was doing it the same way for a long time but from time to time it seemed like it had become useless so i switched to mindfullness meditation for a short time and got back to this method again and it has always awesome benefits especially in the first few weeks. But i changed my meditation habit now i do this kind of meditation you mentioned untill i have close to no-thoughts arising after that i usually go over to doing emotional vipassana which i learned from teal swan i just try to recognize the emotions i feel in my stomach and just accept them go into them untill they become bliss on a normal day i would stop here but sometimes i also add the note-gone technique or just focus on very deep breaths untill i feel my circulation kind of skyrocketing. I also usually try to add phases of self-inquiry inbetween.

The only problem is your ego. It wants appreciation from youself and from the external world. It holds expectations and if these expectations dont get satisfied it will release negative emotions. The ego identifies itself with certain attributes like bring a gold person. From thse identifications are comming your expectations. Therefore if you have no ego identifications, you will have no expectations and be able to live in bliss all day. So start to question and drop your ego identifications and beliefs.

If you want to get rid of misery, get rid of the lust for happiness. And when there is no misery, there is happiness. But it is not because you desire it; it is because you don’t have any desire. In a deep desire-less state, you are full of bliss.

On Friday October 14, I had a great realization as I sitting outside feeling deeply relaxed on a gorgeous Fall day in Washington DC. I realized how completely relaxed and mellow I felt and how my mind was focused on the moment and how wonderful basking in the moment feels like. I realized that enjoying the moment is becoming scarce in mainstream American society. Every morning, millions of people are rushing to and from work and home that the days, weeks, months, and years become a confused blur. The modern mind has became so mired in the shit of "obligations" that they reject relaxation and meditation as "laziness." I go to Guilford College, a very peaceful Quaker college in North Carolina, and one of the main themes in Quakerism is embracing the silence and the Inward Light. The Inward Light is God's presence within us as we slow down and take time out of our day for a moment of silence, prayer, or meditation. I realize that my years at Guilford have mellowed me out! On Monday, I had a meetup with a new friend and she was feeling very hectic because of traffic, depleted funds, and running late but I chose not to lash out at her for being late. I told myself "I will stay calm and not take it personally!" I've spent the whole week recapturing my childhood and it's one of the most amazing life experiences ever!! By watching Halloween classics particularly "Coraline" and "Over the Garden Wall," I felt like I re-entered my childhood and I felt a deep nostalgia because the show and the movie revealed how deep my imagination goes and how these films give me a deep sense of wonder and inspiration. Fortunately, I've been feeling this bliss more and more recently and it feels wonderful!! I had to release this insight. To simplify the insight, I'm simplifying my life by enjoying and loving the moment and I've entered a childlike state where life feels inspirational and magical again! However, I feel like this is just the beginning to something greater on the horizon and I'm too excited to find out!!

Kundalini is just a technical term for your whole energy when it is in unity, in movement, in harmony, without any conflict; when it is cooperative, complementary and organic. So first of all, kundalini is not something unique. It is only human energy as such. But ordinarily only a part of it is functioning, a very minute part. Even that part is not functioning harmoniously; it is in conflict. That is the misery, the anguish. If your energy can function harmoniously then you feel bliss, but if it is in conflict – if it is antagonistic to itself – then you feel miserable. All misery means that your energy is in conflict, and all happiness, all bliss, means that your energy is in harmony. There are two distinct ways to awaken the Kundalini. The first is the one where all the danger lies. In this process, a powerful breathing technique (pranayama) is used to strike the Kundalini. The seat of kundalini, the place of its location, is hammered and moved by breathing, deep and fast breathing. The question "Who am I?" does the same thing; but it hammers the centers from another direction. Deep breathing strikes the center physiologically, and the question "Who am I?" does the same job mentally, psychologically. This question hammers the kundalini with mind energy and deep breathing hammers it with body energy. And if both the hammer strokes are strong enough... Ordinarily there are only two ways of hammering the center - one through breathing and the other through asking "Who am I?" The other approach is to treat the Kundalini as a super intelligent friend who always wants to help you. The Kundalini wants to do whatever it can to help you know it better. It is always awake and moving in your life already. This method uses the sexual energy that is in each of us. These methods are outside the cultural norms of society, and are easily mistaken as sexual indulgence. The difference is that sexual indulgence wastes energy and Tantric methods increase the energy. If you move into sex with awareness, it can turn into tantra. If you move into tantra with unawareness, it can fall and become ordinary sex. It has happened in India – because only India has tried it. All Tantra schools in India, sooner or later, were reduced to sex orgies. It is very difficult to keep aware…it is almost impossible to keep aware.

@Mat Pav Yeah, I feel exactly the way you described. I haven't experienced Infinite Bliss yet but maybe in the future I will.

Enlightenment is the disillusionment of the self as a separate entity. It is not a belief but rather a sort of revaluation common sense; one moment it is obvious to you that you’re an entity imposing it’s will upon the mind-body and the next moment it is obvious to you that no such entity exists. Disillusioning the ego involves a few things: 1) Realising that the self concept (thoughts/images/narratives) is not who you are and disidentifying with it. Detaching is from the self concept is enough if your aim is to reach peace, although you may do away with the self concept altogether since it serves no purpose and can only get in the way. 2) Realising that there was never any entity in control, that there is no real distinction between voluntary and involuntary. The actions and thoughts of the mind-body have been ‘happening’ all long just as the wind happens to blow. After coming to this realisation there becomes nothing left to do but sit back and enjoy the show. The approach changes from one of resistance, neurosis, and constant grasping for control to one of complete acceptance. Bliss/peace/happiness is an not emotional state (although elevated emotional state may be a side effect). It is rather the underlying peace present when in complete acceptance of all that is, including your emotions (being mindful, rather than attaching). Neurosis is the superimposed resistance. It is possible to be at peace while experiencing a depressive emotion; likewise you may also be neurotic while in an ecstatic state. The emotion only becomes ‘negative’ once you have labelled it as such. Acceptance does not mean that you sit idly, taking no action (although that is a valid option). Preferences, values, authentic desires, empathy, love and enjoyment still exist. Only now you are no longer attached to needing any specific outcomes; you are able to play whichever game you wish and engage with it to the fullest, without being hampered or set in a perpetual state of anxiety by the ego. Rigid moral principles will only get in the way of genuine love and compassion and ego will only get in the way of your authentic desires; since the ego is namely concerned with survival, comfort, security and social status, while moral principles are too stringent to allow for the nuance of real situations and give the ego a basis for moral righteousness and the demonization of others. Once you get out of your own way you find that you function effortlessly, the egotistical neurotic whose always trying to call the shots is no longer present, and your actions become much more aligned with your fundamental values. 3) Self realisation; which involves getting a sense of what it is that you are through firsthand experience. It may be interpreted as ‘nothingness’. Nothingness does not mean that ‘something’ does not exist; rather nothingness is more like vacuum of empty space in that it contains the whole universe. In this sense, perception arises out of the void. Nothingness cannot be experienced directly, but you can get a sense that it’s there; similar to the eye’s blind spot, you cannot see it directly but if you hold your finger in the right position you can tell that it’s there. Enlightenment and self realisation are near instantaneous, permanent realisations. They do not require ten years of meditation, nor do they need to be constantly maintained. Once they have been seen, they cannot be unseen. Meditation, yoga, presence, ect. are practices which may be helpful in reaching a state of Being-perception. Being-perception is a temporary state which does require years of practice to attain and can be present to varying degrees, unlike the on/off switch of enlightenment. Although, it is possible to attain B-perception instantaneously under certain circumstances, for instance psychedelic drugs may force you into this state of perception. In ordinary consciousness, the mind is constantly dissecting, labelling, categorising the world; while a great deal of our sensory information is filtered out from awareness altogether. This rubrisisation of our perceptual input causes the world be become familiarised. Being-perception is the disintegration of these abstractions; you experience the raw, unadulterated perception before it is touched by the conceptualising mind (prefrontal processes). The world is viewed in all its 'suchness'. It becomes defamiliarised and the ‘valve of perception’ becomes more open to you. B-perception is magical; it is as if experiencing for the first time. The sky may be perceived as an unimaginably brilliant blue, you may see an infinite complexity in the patterns formed by a wave or in the sound of the rustlings leaves, all the while leaving your experience completely undissected. To experience raw, unfiltered perception is quite possibly the most beautiful things you could experience. B-perception necessarily puts you in an egoless state, although it is not enlightenment. Every human being has experienced moments of egolessness only to return back to the egoic state still attached to their ego. Having an egoless experience does not necessarily trigger the realisations I spoke of earlier. Other transcendent experiences include: - The realisation of the inherent perfection of the world - Unconditional love - Unconditional gratitude I know of no techniques or meditations to attain the three experiences/realisations listed above (perhaps high levels of B-perception will get you there?). They happen to you seemly at random; suddenly overwhelming you as you are taken in by surprise. It is as if the brains 'gratitude/love valve' have opened to the fullest, producing the maximum amount of gratitude or love that the brain can physically produce. You will feel total gratitude for the mere fact of existence itself. People who you previously disliked during egoic state of consciousness will now be approached with nothing but love. You may look towards a rock on the ground and feel overwhelming love for the rock, while seeing its inherent perfection. The experience of just one of these is enough to change your outlook on life, to validate you life and see that it was fundamentally worth living. While I don’t believe enlightenment alone will trigger these experiences, it does seem that they are fundamentally incompatible with the ego; as such enlightenment may be a good place to start. ------- What are your thoughts on these descriptions? Do they match up to your own experiences?

@Dodoster What Ramana's referring to when he says "Silence" is a state of not-knowing, a state that is free of expectation, prediction, and the illusion of knowledge. He's basically saying, "I can't predict or intellectually know anything, so may as well abide in what I know for sure: my Self." Instead, you're equating silence with no-mind and are trying to stop your thinking, hoping for some bliss-explosion that you call "enlightenment." But you'll get nowhere with that because first of all, you can't maintain states of no-mind forever. And second of all, you're refusing to examine all of your most cherished beliefs, which are really what's keeping you from enlightenment. For example, did a "Ramana Maharshi" even exist? How do you know he is the "greatest teacher"? If I were you, I'd take what everyone says (including my words) with a grain of salt. You are the only authority there could ever be on the matter of your experience, because you are it! You are all of it! You're on a singular island of experience. Have you noticed that? There's no such thing as two experiencers. Cheers...

It depends, it depends on the individual. There cannot be any dogmatic statement about it because each individual is so unique. When Basho becomes enlightened he starts singing poetry, poems; Buddha has never done that. When Krishna becomes enlightened he starts dancing, singing; Mahavir has never done that. When Mahavir becomes enlightened he keeps silence for many years, remains absolutely silent, not a ripple is allowed; Meera has not done that. When she becomes enlightened, she dances from village to village, she sings the glory of God. It is very difficult to make a dogmatic statement. Enlightenment is always new, fresh - it is not an imitation, it is not a carbon-copy; it is always original. An enlightened person, if allowed to enter into you, will give you self-evident proofs. But those are not intellectual proofs; they are not arguments of mind. He argues with his whole being. His argument is that of his presence - so allow his presence and don't carry any criterion. If you are a Jain you will miss Buddha; if you are a Jain you will miss Krishna; if you are a Jain you will miss Christ. If you are a Christian you will miss Mahavir. You will carry an idea, a fixed pattern. Don't ask that he should be 'like this'; just be with him. Just sit with him in silence. be open to him. If he has become enlightened, suddenly you will see a throb within you that you have never known before: your energy will start rising. You will see a great silence arising in you, and a great bliss, drop by drop, reaching your innermost core of being. Just be in his presence. If he has arrived, you will feel a sudden pull in your being -- you are being pulled towards some unknown center. And you will feel tremendous beauty, bliss. blessings showering on you. That will be the only criterion; but for that you have to be ready.

@Petervan An amazing tip for starting to enjoy eating healthy which will help you lose weight. Lower your bliss point. What is the bliss point? - The bliss point is the specific amount of satisfaction or stimulation, in which happiness is optimized. It’s the perfect volume of magic fairy dust, that makes you content and happy. Any more, or slightly less will tip you off balance and isn’t as great anymore. The problem with this is that, unless you’re aware of it, you’ll easily fall victim to your unconscious urges. What’s more, if your bliss point is too high, you’ll never be satisfied enough. If your taste buds are under the constant stimulation of processed food and refined carbohydrates, then you’re habituating your mind to be content with nothing less. After a while, you get used to your current bliss point and need to take it to the next level again. On the other hand, if your bliss point is lower, then you’ll get incredible joy from even the smallest of things. You can get immense amount of enjoyment from something so trivial, such as pure water, clean food, less stuff, quality, not quantity relationships. Paradoxically, your happiness increases, as your bliss point decreases. There are several strategies we can use to first lower our bliss point, and then to maintain it at the desired level, without overstimulating it. Fasting - it resets your taste buds Gratitude - abstinence from food makes you more grateful for food Mindfulness - mindful eating makes you appreciate the taste of your food Minimalism - being content with less, in both your food choices and other lifestyle factors It starts with food, but can be applied to anything else as well. Our taste buds and palate are exactly there, where we’ve habituated them. Being used to stimulating food teaches us to not be satisfied with anything less. It's not about eating bland food. It's about teaching yourself to appreciate less stimulating food. Process carbs and sugar create an almost fake stimulus that's causing an unnatural response to your taste buds. Detoxing yourself and reseting your taste buds actually reverses you to your normal state. Hopefully this will help you in making better food choices. You can also check out my blog post about this, in which I go into more detail about every specific strategy and how to do them. Thanks!

It is not conditioning, I have lived in a state of no-mind many times, I know it's taste, it's bliss. Now I have fallen back , so I want to live in peace again.

2016, oct 9th healthy meals happiness sharing bike rides meditation self-inquiry & dharma contemplation deep talks compassive listening actualized.org contributions today i gave a free yoga class to a woman. she's on her 50's and we've been doing this for a while. she has 3 herniated discs but she feels MUCH better now. her flexibility and muscle strength are increasing and she's becoming younger. her eyes shine! after the yoga class i also taught her the practice of zazen. we practiced together. she said that it was hard but she also acknowledged the fact that zazen is what she needs. then i headed to meet a friend of mine. we ate açaí while he was talking about some bad stuff that was happening to him and his parents. i just listened to him. there's nothing much to do in these kinds of situation. i just listened with all my body. in the end he said that he wanted to practice meditation and i invited him to the daissen-ji sangha, which meet on mondays. then i came back home and invited the ashram residents to a free-style meditation in the darkness. there's no form to grasp. just sit and observe whatever happens. i could feel from bliss to agony. pretty interesting! i watched leo's new video and i was amazed by his extensive accuracy. incredible video! then we went to a free choro concert near by. it was AMAZING! the musicians were so good. my perception of reality went kinda crazy but it felt good. i love the impersonal and meaningless taste of reality. i continued the actualized.org subtitle work. it's going to be a long run!

Are you saying that you know for a fact that infinite bliss does not exist?

Brother, listen. I was in a similar state of mind this year for about 6 months. I would wake up in the morning and the first thing that happened was that my mind began racing, negative thought patterns would come up, emotions were triggered. I would get up and do my daily stuff and I was in constant fear all the time. I was in fear when I met people on the street, I was in fear when I went to university, I was in fear even when I was home alone because I thought that my family and friends thought bad of me (...which of course they don't - at least not in such a dramatic way one spins it.) My meditation was basically me sitting while being screamed at by my inner stream of thoughts. I briefly had moments of silents or peace. These 6 months were covered with 3 major awakenings that I had which mostly resulted in 1 week of bliss per awakening and then the terror would even worsen. In the last weeks I would sit in the bus and my head would be spinning scenarios of me killing myself (and I'm not at all, not even fucking remotely suicidal, never was) but it just felt very good to spin these scenarios. That this happened made me then even sicker, that I thought about this. It was all very twisted and I was totally lost. This had to happen to purge my whole childhood / youth drama out of my brain. I knew that this was happening at the time - but still it didn't really help because it was so bad. And I would be having all of this while becoming more and more aware of how I was one with the universe. My awareness expanded a lot in this time which is in retrospect the reason why I felt so shitty. It shined light on so much neurosis that was covered in the dark that it just needed time to burn out all of this shit. So, how do you go about it? Look Matt Khan videos and begin to reconnect with your shadow, your inner child. Don't deny one side of yourself as being bad and responsible for this fuck-up, but see it as a little five year old inside of you who is completely lost and makes you crazy. How do you talk to a five year old? You say that you're sorry that he has to go through such deep and transforming times. You say that your are sorry what happened to him in the past and that your only wish is to make him happy and enlighten him. Actually, really say this to yourself on a daily basis and come in contact with all of this emotional baggage - not trying to get away from it, but care about it. You'll see, it'll magically dissolve because you stop resisting it. Build a daily routine. Sleep 7-8 hours, eat regularly, take a shit, take a daily walk, see nature at least once a day, and don't meditate too much and too hard in times when you are completely off. Meditation is great and you should still be doing it daily, but if you don't even have the power to handle yourself, you don't wanna make you bleed out faster. Take your time. In my worst times I did 30 minutes of a Daoist breathing meditation. Do your HoloSync. You do that, right? This will probably solve most of your problems very fast. Give it some time, but it did and does wonders for me. I love it. Do sports once a week. This is extremely important. If you are not a sporty guy, do at least once a week 10 push-ups. That could be a start. You wanna get rid of all this adrenalin that builds up. I did swimming for two years once a week, now I do a workout with a kettle-bell. Give in on some old ruts. If you wanna smoke, eat some ice cream, watch netflix marathons, do that. You are not in the position right now to work all of these out and thats fine. I binge on way to much stupid shit as for example very delicious spicy food, cigarettes, drugs, whatever I want. I would not restrict myself because I trust my intuition fully. From time to time it kicks one of these old ruts out just naturally. I'm just making sure I'm feeding it with more and more awareness, the rest happens for me automatically. Also, way more important then living the healthy vegan-yoga-idealistic lifestyle is that you accept your desires, find your authenticity and root yourself in that. Then no problem or habit can even remotely bug you. You can consciously cut on those things (if you want) when you have the power and inspiration to do so, not when you are carrying this heavy corpse around every day that is sad and unmotivated. This leads just to disaster. Stay at home if you like or connect with some friends here and there that give you good vibes and just follow through on that. In reality, all of this takes some time but eventually will make you the most rooted, clear-thinking and on-point person that you can think of. Keep remembering what I said in my shrooms post: All pain simply comes from the fact that at some point you started to believe your own story. And if I read your story, I see that you do that a lot and suffer from that. Now, probably this is all happening automatically and you can't do nothing about it. It was for me at that time. That's fine. Nature sometimes just wants to be in deep, deep pain so that the fun after it is even way better. Nature is a beast, trust me. And lastly, if it gets too hard, you can always write me. You know that. I help you man. Peace will come and knowing as well. In retrospect to my own fuck-up purging time: I am now as authentic, confident, happy and rooted in what I do more then ever in my life. I have to this point experienced every possible emotion I can think of in every extreme, from the complete non-duality of things to the worst nightmares of fear and anxiety. I am so intimately bounded to me as an individual that nothing normal can really shock me any more, because I went through all of it. And you will be, too. So in the end this builds the most important and intimate foundation you could ever ask for. You just don't know it yet. So, cheer up. Nature is just building your strongest version and this needs some transformation. Cheers

You expected a more blissful experience yes? Not everyone experience that. Some experience bliss, some experience immense fear, and some don't have a powerful experience at all. Eventually that experience fades and then there is just peace and calm. Well I'm not going to convince you that is what you experienced because I can only guess but if this makes sense to you, try to lean back into that place. Maybe @Ayla can help clarify things for you.

Normally, so long as you are carried away by your speeding thoughts, you do not feel disturbed by the thoughts. But if you pause in-between, and study your mind, you realize how feverishly it works, and disturbs your peace. This pause is essential for curbing the over-activity of mind. You have to halt and watch your thoughts; for, if your thoughts are running fast, you cannot know your mind. Therefore, I reiterate, your experience is a good omen. Do not be worried about it, on the contrary, be glad. But then take the next step: take a completely impersonal view of the thought process. Be only an observer of thoughts; have nothing to do with them except to observe them. When thoughts cloud your mind, and harass you, ask them, ‘Oh thoughts! To whom do you belong? Do you belong to me?’ You will get no reply to this inquiry! Because the thoughts do not belong to you! Try and find out. Thoughts are your guests. They have made a lodging house of your mind. It is wrong to think of them as yours; and this same mistake comes in the way of getting rid of them. If you identify as yours, you stand in the way of their exit. And the thoughts which are your temporary guests become permanent lodgers. By looking at thoughts impersonally, you sever connection with them. Whenever a thought or desire is born in you, watch its birth, see it grow before the mind’s eye, and then observe its decline, and the final departure. Repeat this observation with the second thought that enters the mind; watch also its birth, and growth, decline and death. Thus, in a quiet and detached manner—that is, as a witness—observe the constant stream of thoughts. Feel nothing about them, good or bad. Form no opinions about them, favourable or unfavourable. Just watch. Thus, by silent choiceless observation, the traffic of thoughts slows down; and finally, a state of thoughtless Bliss is achieved.

Name: Siim Land Age: 22 Gender: Male Location: Estonia Occupation: writer, blogger, BA in Anthropology, being self-empowered Marital status: Single, gaming Kids: None Hobbies: writing, reading, meditation, self-actualization, self-empowerment, fitness, nutrition, YouTube, storytelling If I were to investigate when I started personal development, then I would say that I've been motivated to always improve myself. As a child I valued hard work and dedication. My parents also taught me to be myself and follow my passion over everything else. Thanks mom and dad! Albeit I consider myself extremely lucky and raised well, my childhood wasn't a breeze all the time. There were periods where we struggled financially, emotionally and socially. We've gone through hardships, stress and resentment, but we were also bestowed with a lot of happiness and bliss. In school I experienced a semi-downfall. Nothing too serious but I must admit that I fell victim to social conditioning and some bad habits. Luckily, I didn't fall in neck deep and managed to stay aware enough to pull myself out. After graduation I apotheosized in my hero's journey and got on a path of self-empowerment which I've followed ever since. Momentum is definitely on my side and I've never been happier nor more successful. At the moment, everything is moving in the right direction and I'm experiencing growth both physical, mental and spiritual. What's more important for me is the fact that my purposeful pursuit is reflecting onto other people around me as well. I'm working harder and giving more than ever before but at the same time I'm more fulfilled as well. Life is amazing. Personal challenges overcome: Managed to get back on track with my hero's journey, which I accepted as a child, but refused in my teens. Reclaimed my self-confidence and predator instinct, which had been made dormant due to social conditioning. Created an abundant source of passive income around my passion and purpose. Growing. Thanks to homesickness experienced in the military, I set aside some of my egotistic traits and realized how much I love my family. What I'm working on now: My craft, my brand, my purpose http://siimland.com/ Getting my YouTube channel off ground Dating and making more female connections Last year of my BA in anthropology. The theme of my dissetation: Consciousness and Transcendental Meditation Creating more meaningful experiences for my family and friends Practicing public speaking Kaizen self-actualization and empowerment Thanks!

@Leo Gura Leo, it all started because you mentioned seeing "a few hairs of the ox" in one of your enlightenment clips when you were at a retreat. Of course, I had to look it up to see what that meant. I found Shinzen Young's clips and he described footprints to ox's tail to Riding the Ox Backwards. When I found out about Riding the Ox Backwards, it reminded me of a "dream" I had when I was 1 yr old. Basically, to make the story short, I was the no-self ( nothingness ). Then, I became a sphere with stars all around me in blackness. Then, it was space. Then, I went through a black hole facing backwards into my 1 yr old body. I was this massive, massive light going into my body. I felt the divine love - extreme bliss - after I awoke. Long story though... I always wondered why I was facing backwards and not forwards. Then, I thought, we are only embodied throughout life, either in a human body or a soul or whatever. What we actually are is nothing/everything = the peace consciousness. That's why I realized that our ego (emotions) are all fiction. I lost a brother when he was 18 - died of brain cancer. I saw him again in a "dream" a few days later. I thought he came back to life. I talked to him and said that I was going to see him again. Of course, there are a lot more details in all of these. But, the thing I noticed in these two experiences is that I was also the observing self. When I was the sphere in space, I was observing myself as the no-self ( not embodied in anything ) at a different angle. I was the observing self when witnessing the massive, massive light going into my body. And, I was also the observing self when talking to my Bro. I witnessed myself talking to him. There were a lot of ah-ha moments (and little experiences) after seeing all your enlightenment clips. Thanks for being very articulate and clear in your clips, Leo. I find that these experiences also interconnect with my life purpose. (Karma) Note: Before, I thought the sky is the limit when working on my startup. Now, it's a life purpose toward world peace due to your world peace clip, enlightenment clips, etc. Those are the best ones! Best of luck in your enlightenment journey, esp when it comes to taking substances. And, I'm not here to judge, but please stay safe.

I would say that 'success' is actually counterproductive to 'happiness'. But that's a complicated issue to go in to right now. But it really depends on your definition of 'happiness'. Because it seems that most people seem to think of it as some positive emotion such as joy, bliss, excitement, stimulation, etc. When in fact I see happiness as being the absence of emotion and more of a 'peace of mind' state. Which is all about the psychology of the person and not the circumstances of their life.

The main reason for this post is because there is a lot of hysteria/misconceptions about mental illness, especially once people start to get into spirituality and psychedelics some people may sometimes be afraid they will one day 'trigger something that breaks their functioning mind, free will, emotions caused soly by some genetic predisposition'. Luckily that's a bunch of bullshit, though triggers and collapses may occur, the real cause is simply trauma, which can be dealt with. No developed mental illness (which is what we will be talking about) has ever been diagnosed through a biological test, it's a mere opinion based on symptoms (whom vary a lot, and of which not all are negative or even unhealthy), which creates a very very vague field: For instance, 10 people may have a cough, yet they may all have different diseases, but because the diagnosis is based on the symptom, they are all labeled with the same illness. (not to mention, a biological correlation also does not imply a cause, i.e. (mental) stress may still be the underlying cause) And other example, schizophrenia is based on just 2 out of 5 symptoms for a diagnosis: 'The positive symptoms of schizophrenia (delusions, hallucinations, and disorganized speech) can look like a manic episode of bipolar disorder, while the negative symptoms of schizophrenia (apathy, social withdrawal, and low energy) can look like a depressive episode.' Did you experience something unusual or belief in some unusual things? Do you hear voices sometimes, or see something not seen by others sometimes, either positive or negative? etc. Well, even having just a few of these things may already end you up diagnosed. Does that mean something is wrong with your body/mind per se? No, it means this particular culture created an arbitrary system to label the strange. However most people diagnosed mentally disturbed, are most often damaged broken individuals. Often schizophrenics and other mentally ill come from a unhealthy upbringing, were taught no confidence or love, in worse cases were (severely) abused by the parents or environment, didn't fit in socially and that has caused an unbalanced mind with all sorts of negative beliefs, low self worth and no tools to deal with it. In my own experience, I have been diagnosed with schizophrenia, yet recovered from all symptoms remarkably fast. Long personal story: My youth: I had rather emotionally weak/insecure parents, spend almost all my free time behind TV and later video games, I was bullied, my dad died at 15 and at the same time, around age 15/16 I did recover socially (thanks to new friends and weed at the time (weed actually opened my eyes as to realizing I wasn't the only insecure being on the planet, but that it was in fact rampant). However not much later I started getting into mushrooms somewhat frequently and after some intense trips I realized we are spiritual being who could be living a ecstatic life if we decided to live in oneness without fear (among a few other things), but because I had no further tools or guidance and I was still walking around with a lot of emotional trauma/self-repression, and lacked the courage to be my true self, my negative ego flourished; I had no motivation for the regular world anymore, stayed in my room all day/night, I didn't know how to let go of all my fear and emotional trauma, and I wanted to die. But since that was not an easy or seemingly smart thing to do, I tried the next seemingly best thing, trying to imagine a better world for myself, I wanted to belief I was more special than others because I felt so inadequate. and I wanted to belief the moment was more special because I felt so shitty; this resulted in delusions and even in some rather small but (partly) self induced hallucinations (belief is a powerful tool) (though not of all can be said to be definitive hallucinations). After about a year of that me and my mom both thought it was a good idea to hospitalize for depression and psychosis (though in my eyes at the time, I believe I was just depressed, given I simply lived very unconsciously). I was hospitalized for psychosis, I hoped to receive good therapy, I imagined someone who would just talk to me so I could cry it all out. Strangely enough, despite living a developed first world country (The Netherlands), none of that happened, I was asked to simply take medications and was pretty much put away with similar (but nice) individuals with a short group therapy once a week, despite that, nothing really happened except a few. very short, talks with a (apathetic) psychiatrist. A wonderful business model to keep people taking drugs for their whole lives and not actually look at their problems indeed, luckily I refused all medication and they didn't pat attention. I was diagnosed with a schizoaffective disorder (schizophrenia with emotional imbalance) at the end of my year long hospitalization, overall, it was an OK time to simply get to myself more somewhat with no responsibilities, though that did not really help that much at all, luckily, I later did find the cure. Getting rid of mental illness At the end of my hospitalization of about a year I started meditating and things got better quickly, I just went home, got back to school, continued my practice and also started practicing self-inquiry, quickly in about a year time all my delusions/hallucinations as well as the dreadful depression simply faded. I went from very mentally restless to less and less until I was more neutral, until the neutrality birthed a small joy. During that time and time after until this day, emotional trauma surfaced (regularly) and is released, making me less afraid, less tense and free-er. Years later the progress has simply continued and I'm a happy, peaceful person and productive person, still there is some healing to do and there is a long infinite way to further to live and progress into total harmony, oneness and bliss with God,- thank God. And with no mental or emotional disturbance that ever surfaced again, even after taking psychedelics again numerous times, In fact living more in harmony with your inner-self makes you become actually one of the more sane people, and living in sync with life which gets wonderfully and clearly reflected with consistent synchronicities and a more conscious communication with the divine/yourself (through synchronicity, feeling, inspiration), despite how delusional that might sound to the common man. And now, in hindsight, I can look back at a dreadful depression and delusional moments with some gratitude, as it provided me a great useful contrast to more fully know who I really am and what actual happiness is. The gene myth As you may already have figured, trauma/negative imprints and the fear is what causes an imbalance in thought and behavior. Gene's do play (a rather small) role, as well as your environment, though ultimately it's the mind that decides what it beliefs in and how it wants to function in relation to it's beliefs. So no. Schizophrenia or any other developed mental illness does not get suddenly triggered caused by some gene; the concordance rate between identical twins and schizo. is around 25% and the concordance rate between fraternal twins is about 5%. This shows that people with exactly the same gene's have a 25% chance of getting schizo. together, not a 100%. Although the number is higher than of the fraternal twins, this may be caused be cause they are more susceptible to receiving emotional imprints, perhaps psychic functioning or because they were simply raised more similarly and gotten into the same circumstances and mental health system. So in short: gene's do not cause any developed mental illness. Well explained by some of the best professors in the world here as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36HquPzdxf4 It's caused by trauma Because of my own experiences I strongly belief that all disturbances simply come from being raised in an impure, dishonest, negative and simply insane world (which in truth is anything that does not display oneness), which we soak in as children which may or may not make us then extremely insane, or simply just a bit more so than the rest. This is not my view alone, I came to found out, there are quite a few (renowned) psychiatrists who see it this way as well, to name a few good psychiatrists and researched: Charles Whitfield (very good), Colin Ross, John Breeding, Ben Sessa and the list is not complete. - so TL:DR Don't be afraid of developing any mental illness, it can only come from too much emotional/mental baggage fundamentally which you can simply heal through (and probably mainly through) spirituality/meditation/self-inquiry and other modalities (expressing yourself, openly talking, music etc.). - (One of the most useful things I found is to conjure up fear through your imagination, to then feel in the body to then meditate on it.) Peace <3

Vipassana meditation for 1-2 hours a day in the morning is perfectly fine. If it gives you a certain feeling of affinity, if it gives you a certain feeling of well-being, if it gives you a certain feeling that this is for you, then be serious about it. Then forget the others techniques, do not play with other methods. Stick to it - at least three months. I don't agree with '10 days of intense meditation', it not good for beginners. Whenever someone begins meditation, he will become aware of many things of which he was not previously aware, and because of that awareness he will suffer. This is how things are, and one has to pass through them. You are becoming more unconscious. With a real, authentic meditation you will suffer more, because you will become more aware. So when you allow it to happen, you don´t escape, you don´t run, you are not in a panic, suddenly you become aware that suffering is there on the periphery as if happening to someone else, not to you, and you are looking at it. A subtle joy spreads all over your being because you have realized one of the basic truths of life, that you are bliss and not suffering. Suffering should not be end result.

Agreed! Yes, and here is something else I think is worth some notable consideration. The modern spiritual world seems to be obsessed with conflating enlightenment with a particular state of mind. Eternal bliss states etc, perfect goodness, or the mahatma ideal. I think even for a fair amount of mature people now who have devoted a good proportion of their time investing in their development are maybe also prone to believing that enlightenment itself is something to do with "purity". The purification is a large factor, but this is only really to get the mind quiet enough to understand that the Self is ever free of all states, and therefore its reflections are ALL reflections, the good the bad and the ugly. We don't generally think of an enlightened person as being a normal person, but this is what enlightenment actually is, the verses are saying "you are that already" no need to chase something that you already are. Its an irony that the route of the problem with the assumption that there is something "wrong" with us lies at the very doorstep of the messed up interpretations of the religions that were originally supposed to set us free. What a joke! I hope that these erroneous assumptions straightens themselves out in time

I've never had complete 'egoless' moments but I have had plenty of what I call peak experiences during which my ego has been largely 'irrelevent' and I've felt only pure peace, bliss, joy of the moment. A sense of beauty of the moment I guess. These experiences usually happened during moments where I was expecting nothing from the moment, and I was in complete acceptance of the moment. I often happens when I out in nature, There's a certain sense of 'awe' that accompanies it too. Everything about the 'story' of my life would become like a distant dream and in that moment, there was no story, no fears or worries, no 'life' as such. It's a beautiful thing.

Maybe perceiving everything as perfect brings you on the path to nirvana. But thats exactly the reason why those people who do not see everything as perfect and are trying to fix things for others who dont see everything as perfect and improving their finite lives should be considered much more of a saint than those who reach nirvana and live in constant bliss and can't be bothered by anything. Oh and by the way, its much easier to see everything as perfect, when you have a warm home, internet and most things that people in the past who didnt see things as being perfect broke sweat for, exactly because they were burnt by a fire that said: Nope, thats not really perfect.