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I have watched Leo's videos for a long while, and even lurked here occasionally, but I am noticing a consistent and pervasive trend among some users here. This trend is that of believing that using psychedelics over... and over... and over... with the intent of "smashing the ego" is the way to permanent liberation. Misguided at best, potentially life-ruining at worst. There are many examples of people who thought they could force their way into full enlightenment via drugs, including Timothy Leary. Spoiler alert: Nah. There's really not much else to say here, other than to consider the question of why somebody feels a need to do psychs over and over. I sense that many individuals may be using this system of incessant psychedelic use to avoid problems in their personal life or otherwise engage in spiritual bypassing and/or spiritual materialism. I am not demonizing psychedelics (I have done a fair amount), but I am urging some of you (especially younger readers) to step away from your microscope and examine your life fully. Psychedelics are not the end all, be all to your life's problems. If you are having trouble making friends, building relationships, being honest, or otherwise excelling in the life you believe would be most fulfilling, there is work to be done beyond tripping. No amount of meeting DMT aliens or having peak experiences will remedy conventional problems. And as a final tack-on point here, there's a lot of ego-stroking about experiences related to "being God," "becoming God," "oneness," whatever. A lot of users seem to be tossing these words around but not ever doing the work to find a place of stable presence in life. The map is not the territory. Saying you are God/the Absolute endlessly does not alter your consciousness and imbue you with peace of mind. Beware this bypassing. Anyway, that's about it. If this resonates with you, you know what you need to do. If not, it's all good as well. I wish all beings on this forum the best of luck, plenty of love, and a reminder to brush your teeth twice a day. It's been a fun, if brief, ride here. Thank you for coming to my TED talk. <3

- - - - - - Your question would make a lot more sense if you asked: Can you be happy and not fully enlightened? If you can't be happy with full enlightenment then you truly are fucked and there is no God.

I think that if you grasp it deeply enough you can say it has a limit. It's infinitely empty and you've sorta plumbed the depths of it to the point where there's nothing more to do with it because it has no qualities whatsoever. So it's rather simple at that point. But still, many people have not grasped it deeply enough. Most people have glimpses of it. Think of it like the difference between counting down from a random number to zero vs counting up from a random number to infinity. It's easier to count down to zero because zero is the bottom floor. But there is no upper floor. Zero has that sort of special quality to it of being so empty that you can't get any less than zero. So you could say that zero is a natural limit. Whereas counting upward has no natural limit. In that direction, by your own framing of the situation, yes, there is "no further". But there is further in the upward direction. If you poo-poo the upward direction, then yes, you're done. Or stuck. And if you choose to define that as "full enlightenment" then you are fully enlightened by your own self-imposed definition. Both directions are important and valid. My only point is, don't invalidate the upward direction. Even though I like the upward direction more than the downward I don't invalidate the downward. The whole thing must come full-circle in the end. You could say some of us are traversing the circle upward and some of us downward, and we debate each other as we cross paths about which direction is better. Some spiritual schools, like Zen/Vedanta, have a bias towards traversing the circle downward. While some spiritual schools, like Christianity, Hinduism, or psychonauts, have a bias towards traversing the circle upward. The upward schools tend to talk about Love and God more, and they tend to be more mystical and otherworldly. But of course this is a gross over-simplification. You can traverse both ways and gain the benefits of both. Assuming you're openminded. And most spiritual people aren't.

Well, with all due respect, whether or not you believe in such a thing is not really important. Looking at Buddhist/nondual teachers who have spent tens of thousands of hours meditating and contemplating, I do feel it is possible. People like Peter Ralston do not depend on drugs to create an enlightenment experience—they are living it. One consistent theme I've seen on this forum is that people equate "being with the godhead" (usually inspired by an LSD/mushroom/DMT trip) with "full enlightenment." Full enlightenment is unaffected by causes and conditions. Enlightenment does not mean existing as some transcendent, formless singularity for eternity. Depends on your definition of enlightenment, of course. It is just a word. If we talk about enlightenment as a permanent cessation of suffering and seeing reality clearly, I do believe it is possible.

The Tibetan/Dzogchen answer to this is that awareness once existed without self-knowledge, i.e. animals and insects without self-consciousness. Then awareness progresses to self-recognition but is deluded by seeing its manifestations as separate - i.e. self and other. Full enlightenment constitutes the awareness recognizing its own appearance and not being further deluded by it. You might think of it as awareness being permanently "vaccinated" against making the same error as before

*This is my personal opinion and feelings* I have strange feelings about this. On the one hand, Leo is one of the few people that is truly interested in full enlightenment, which is just amazing, going all the way is super rare. On the other hand, I feel he has no grace. I see photos or videos of people, who even being saints, it is clear that they are much more asleep than Leo, however I feel this buzz in my third eye and my body is more light and relaxed. This never happened me while watching Leo's video, it is true that when he opens his mouth everything changes, but his mere presence doesn't bring me to God. He has profound wisdom of Reality, Truth, Conciousness and Love but idk I don't feel God's presence when he just is. However, I feel it with less realized individuals that just by watching a picture, even not knowing anything of them, I inmideatly feel it's grace, then check what they say and realize Leo is decades ahead of that guy. So very puzzled about this phenomena: grace, wisdom, awakenings, blessings, God's presence... Thought they all went together, any insights? What are your thoughts about this?

This second sentence still puzzles me to this day. If the what the first one is saying is "there is no interpreter", no self that does the interpretation, sure. But the second one is like saying "there is no thought" as distinctions or dualities are the basis of all thoughts. OK thoughts are not actually there, they are "thought". We can say thinking is a "false process" or that thought isn't. Perhaps Truth is the lack of those distinctions and perhaps that there is no such thing as "not truth" as those moments of being lost in thought happen exclusively in the past (we think they happened). But then in this moment, as I look at my banana, I can clearly see it's edge. It's distinction between banana and no banana. The image that is presented to me (the appearance of the banana, before interpretation, the clouds let's say, the direct experience of sight) has the potential for distinction. Yet if I was in a sensory deprivation tank, what would appear in my direct experience would not allow for potential for distinction within itself. Sure I can use memory to compare the sensory deprivation to a normal "full of pattern" image but within the image itself. What if I am put in a sensory deprivation tank with some drug that gives me total amnesia (no memory access)? In such a case, the mind wouldn't be able to make any distinction since it has absolutely no sensory input to distinguish anything from anything. It would probably be a state of full enlightenment with no thought and pure joy. Yet if I were to truly stop making any distinctions, it wouldn't be much different from the sensory tank experiment. There wouldn't be a distinction between "medium which allow for distinctions" and "medium which do not allow for distinction". When you talk about your crystal balls or your lens, you say we use a lens to focus on a specific part of ourselves (as god, as everything) and from what we see we assume to be human having our human life. But I don't see this lens. This sight of the banana peel (eaten by that time) doesn't seem complete to me. My field of view is not totally empty like a sensory deprivation tank yet it's doesn't have the maximum amount of entropy and it doesn't seem to show every thing. You could say that well, all the other stuff I think I am missing (for instance the sight of an apple) are ideas coming from memory and thus not true. But then isn't that the same thing for change? Any change to what I'm seeing happens in the future or past, so the entire universe, for all of eternity, is this sight of a banana peel and all the other stuff I see, with the stuff I hear, feel, touch etc. There has never been anything else and there will never be anything else that this? That's just hard to swallow. Especially as I can turn my head and see other stuff entering my field of view. So then what, it was never the previous scene, it always was the new scene? I know I'm in some sort of misconception. I spent a fair amount of time on my last mushroom trip trying to "unzoom" my field of view and see what's "outside". Maybe there's a duality to be collapsed between what I see and imagine but what I imagine always seems unclear and some sort of "duality soup" than what I see in front of me (what appears as what is). What I imagine is like just ideas and not really images like consciousness is. I'm curious if you have anything to say that can give insight and I'm curious about what's the real deal with your crystal ball. At least I'm confused as to what is the lens you talk about in actuality.

Yeah, that's what I'm saying, after Enlightenment the illusion ends. No more Bob. Bob is gone back to being a quantum probability. So Enlightenment or maybe Full Enlightenment is the complete sacrifice to God. So that God is made flesh in the 3 D world.

I am 21. I am studying Psychology at Uni. Will finish in 1.5 years. Three Conditions: I have some life purpose ideas which I started to some degree: YouTube, Comedy and Spiritual teacher (later in life) I have a solid spiritual development for my age (Ox herding pic 4) I stilll have many addictions (weed, alcohol, youtube) and my self-discipline is my biggest obstacle. The Situation: My addictions are hindering my life purpose work to a great degree. My addictions fill a void in me, this void always occurs when I realize that there is nothing to do. This realization comes from the fact that I know from my enlightenment experiences, "this is the perfect moment". (but still, I feel bad doing nothing all day) So why do I have to create this grand, hard to achieve life purpose for myself? Why do I need a life purpose to fill the void? Shouldnt this be done through spiritual work? I fear that my "life purpose" is nothing more than an ego trip which is trying to create a big name for myself. Create a person that was so significant and outstanding with his work. I fear that if I achieve my life purpose (for example, a successful comedian), I will be in the same spot that I am now. (still addicted, still confused) And how do I get rid of these addictions? Through meaningful work and a grand vision of who I could be? Isnt that an addiction in itself? This void can only be filled through ultimate wholeness right? The Options: Option 1: Go full in on life purpose and hope my addictions will resolve along the way as my project gets more successful, achieve full enlightenment later in life. Option 2: Go full in on spiritual development, rid oneself of addiction, rid oneself of need to be successful. After that life purpose will come naturally. Option 3: Go full in on ridding oneself of addiction first (dont know how), to then fully do life purpose work What is The Way? -

You obviously have not realized that form and formlessness are identical. Your consciousness is not the highest. Stop listening to these teachers who tell you that nothingness and formlessness is distinct from form. Everything is Absolute, which means experience is Absolute too. Well, they are wrong. There is nothing but Infinite Mind. So to say that something is "of the mind" is silly. Everything is of the mind. Mind is not limited to thinking stuff or "monkey mind". This notion of mind as "monkey mind" is a very problematic and incorrect view of Mind. If you want to shut off the Mind, then you lose your body too, because your body is nothing but Mind. You also lose other humans. And you lose the world. All of that is Mind. If your goal is to shut off Mind, your only choice is to kill yourself. LIFE is MIND! And let's not pretend like life doesn't matter. It matters to you, otherwise you would not be hear talking, trying to persuade people of your ideas. I don't presume that. Nothing exists but myself. All of you are illusions within my own mind. And likewise for you. Yes, God is stuck in a limited state as a human. This is obvious, otherwise everyone would be awake. No, this is wrong. You have created a duality between formlessness and form. Psychedelics offer far more than "ego death". Ego death is not even the most important aspect of psychedelics. The most important aspect is the change to one's state of consciousness. And THAT is enlightenment. Whether ego death occurs is not even that relevant. God realization is certainly an experience. I've had it many times. And so have tens of thousands of other humans. I could talk for hours about all the functions of God, because I have directly experienced many of them. They are wrong. I could say the same about you. Two can play that game. All of your fave nondual teachers are misleading you to lower states of consciousness. This is absurd to claim. Reality IS imagination. If you don't realize that, you're obvious nowhere near as conscious as you imagine yourself to be. God and imagination and Love, etc. are not my dogma. And they are not interpretations. Nor are they relative things. What I'm talking about is ABSOLUTE INFINITY -- not anything like some Christian's limited vision of Jesus. There is nothing higher that ABSOLUTE INFINITY. And any teacher who is not stressing INFINITY does not have the highest consciousness. Reality is INFINITY. Period. You cannot get around this with any technique or teach or realization. It will always be INFINITY. Nothing less, nothing more. No. This is wrong. Psychedelic experiences are as Absolute as Absolute gets. You don't know that. I'm a pretty unique guy Psychedelic affect me very uniquely. For example, I get almost no visuals from vaped DMT. Well, they are wrong. Remember, psychedelics don't work well on many people. Especially people who dabble in them. I have not met a single enlightened person who as done serious psychedelic work. Most of them have dabbled with a couple of trips. This means they are not qualified to talk about psychedelics, or even enlightenment. Being immune is not bullshit. I have personally seen so called enlightened people take DMT, for example, and still not being conscious fully of what things are. And on some people it just doesn't have much effect at all. It's not even that they are so much immune. They are just dabblers. They take one trip and say that's enough. Talk about self-deception. I've seen enlightened people take a baby dose of 5-MeO-DMT and then pussy out and refuse to take any more, thus remaining ignorant. Show me an enlightened person who has done breakthrough 100 trips on a wide variety of substances. I have tripped close to 150 times. So I speak from very deep experience on this matter. I'm not just speculating. I'm telling you things that few humans on this planet can fathom. The next time you talk to an enlightened guru who tells you psychedelics aren't it. Before you listen to him, first ask him: How many trips have you done, and on what substances, at what dosages? This will give you the true reason for their dumb ideas. This is wrong. DMT produces enlightenment and beyond. BTW, DMT is nothing, so it does not contradict your idea that nothing produces enlightenment. If nothing produces enlightenment, then why do all of your gurus charge you money for retreats and teach you practices for enlightenment? They are obviously full of shit hypocrites. DMT cannot produce enlightenment but a workshop or retreat can? Pure horseshit. I can generate an full enlightenment in 15 minutes on command. You guru cannot. There is nothing dualistic or relative about 5-MeO-DMT. Realization is a state change in consciousness. Mind is Infinity. So your point is moot. False. I have fully realized Absolute Truth on psychedelics many times. And as far as knowing what Truth is, I know what it is regardless of what state I am in, regardless of whether I am on psychedelics or not. Truth is experience. It's so simple. Truth is NOT nothingness. Although nothingness is also a part of Truth. Experience IS nothingness. They are identical. This misrepresents the power of psychedelics. All that is true but it is peanuts. The key point of psychedelics is Absolute Truth. If you don't reach Absolute Truth on psychedelics, you're doing them wrong, or your brain genetics are not suitable for psychedelics. Wrong. All states and experiences must be Absolute Truth, otherwise they could be exist and you could not be conscious of them. For anything to arise in consciousness requires it to be Absolute Truth. Because Truth is just existence. A thing cannot exist and not be True. Everything is of the mind, because the only thing that exist is Infinite Mind. You're making the mistake of diminishing "mind". And ironically, you're doing this using your mind. Your entire physical body is purely "of the mind". As are all physical objects. I am conscious that my mind designed my body. Are you? Where do you think your body came from? Who do you think created every hair on your ass? Most of your so-called gurus are not even conscious of self-design, which is why none of them teach it. Self-design is one of these most important realizations you can have. If you call yourself enlightened and you are not conscious of self-design, you are so far from full consciousness. If you are not conscious of how you designed every hair on your ass, you ain't really awake.

Psychological needs DO NOT exist after enlightenment! Please do not paraphrase from Emerald. She projected a whole lot of things. I didn't say neglect or stop caring for yourself whether physically or psychologically. She misinterpreted what I said out of whatever things she's experiencing. Enlightenment is paradoxical. So whatever applies before enlightenment does not necessarily apply after. That's what I'm saying. The self/ego, which is what psychology essentially is, is gone after full enlightenment, which I'm not claiming that I have, neither am I claiming that it's 100% possible. It's just what it seems to me from my experiences. I must say that it may not be realistic to remove the self/ego 100%. However, 99% may be possible. If you had only 1% of your current ego, would you still have the same needs or only 1% of them? And wouldn't that change your whole understanding of psychology? Because if you can be well without what you initially thought is necessary, then what does that say about its actual value? Note also that this opens the door to this unique possibility: The remaining 1% can then be viewed as a new 100% and then one can work on removing 99% of it, and so forth. If you put an enlightened "person" (I'm using quotation marks because I know some genius will come and say that the person can't be enlightened) and an unenlightened person to the same psychological challenges, how do you anticipate their reactions will be? How will they be affected, physically, emotionally, and psychologically? And who will experience more suffering and form more defence mechanisms? If you disagree, can you give me at least one example of what you expect to happen in a hypothetical situation? What seems to be missing in your worldview is the importance of the relationship between conscious awareness and the subconscious mind. Enlightenment shifts this relationship. The subconscious becomes conscious, the shadow gets reintegrated, and the self becomes The Self. In traditional psychology, it is assumed that The Mind is made-up of different smaller "minds". This distinction is true before enlightenment (I guess because it's coming from the general population). And it's the basis of enlightenment work. People have different definitions of enlightenment, so it may be tricky to find a common ground here. But that's what I'm saying essentially. If you have any criticism of my views, please critique what I said. Others interpret things from their povs, and I don't take ownership of/responsibility for anything outside of my own words. Thanks.

Full mahasamadhi vs not full mahasamadhi. (from the ultimate perspective that's of course bs). From this binary perspective, Jesus didn't have full enlightenment while on earth. 2 ways how these things are possible: it seems like there are different kinds of mahasamadhis. Apparently, some who do mahasamadhi stay around in the astral. From there they can affect us (as well as all people who died a normal death). If you are psychic, you can hear and see them. They can give you advice and transmissions. Those who do full mahasamadhi are conpletely gone Thoughtforms. Santa Claus is a real astral entity. Humanity created it by thinking about it and putting emotions into it. You can look up thought forms and egregors (tulpas, servitors), to learn more. Because people keep thinking about famous deceased people, there are thoughtforms of them on the astral. They can help and interact with you in the same way as the real person could. But they are usually weaker.

Yeah. The Law of One material, if you accept its premise, totally blows up the ideas frequently bandied about on this forum and those of conventional nonduality teachings. I mean, sure, you have "Zen Devilry" ("enlightened rogues") but that's typically considered a passing stage on the way to full enlightenment. But here the fundamental premise is that you can be enlightened yet Service-To-Self (i.e. control/power as opposed to love-others-oriented. The split is 95% to self for the first and 51% to others for the second.) Now, most spiritual seekers and enlightened people are, in my experience, Service-To-Others oriented. But definitely not everyone.

Ask people you trust, whether friends or parents or whomever what your shadow is, or you can put it in terms of "what part of myself do I neglect or suppress or project?" Then listen to them. It's going to be uncomfortable as hell to accept their input without inner resistance. If you feel that resistance, then you are resisting information about the shadow. I gotta be honest, though. There's only a limited amount of shadow work that will happen until you reach FULL enlightenment. The I-thought is in the way, it attaches itself to your conditioned personality parts too easily. (Not that you needn't try, just be modest in your expectations.)

You could, or you could not. Shinzen Young is experimenting with some badass brain-busting technology. There's a possibility that with the convergence of exponential technology over the next few decades, we may start to see a hyper-accelerated path to full enlightenment that doesn't involve psychedelics or traditional meditation techniques. We'll see.

One thing I can criticize is his insistence that enlightened masters who don't tell you literally all of everything haven't reached "full enlightenment" yet, and therefore don't understand reality on a sufficient level to be noteworthy. Just because a master doesn't tell you about machine elves, strange loops and you being god, that doesn't mean they're not fully aware of the true scope of things and the true depth of reality. The reason for staying silent on these issues is twofold, first, you don't want to disturb quote unquote normal people, because everyone on the unenlightened side of things is doing a very delicate dance and balancing it out perfectly. If you fill their minds with esoteric knowledge they are liable to misunderstand it or misuse it which can knock them off balance. They need to be gently and correctly guided to truth instead by removing concepts instead of adding them. And second, they are perfectly aware that this knowledge cannot be simply downloaded into English or some other human language, so what would be the point of discussing it anyway? Experiencing it is the way, and the only way. There's a reason why this knowledge is often called "hidden knowledge". It's because no matter how much you describe it, you can't do it justice. Truth of reality is subtle and extraordinary, and while talking about the most potent truths can be engaging and fun, it can never lead to truth. Each master, if they're a real master, has a certain game they play and I have no doubt that some can influence you just by being close to you physically and if their game is subtlety, then that should be respected. After all the truth of reality is subtle and often read between the lines. That's not to say there's not a lot of phony gurus out there, I just think everyone who doesn't teach the highest esoteric knowledge should be immediately discarded as one. You can recognize a great master when they teach in such a way that their teaching is relevant on both the lowest and the highest level of student's spiritual development. Same words with different contexts can have drastically different effects. Don't get me wrong though, have been a fan for years. Much love

Yes. If everyone was at an advanced enough stage of enlightenment it would be as if the earth was one giant collective consciousness. Think of the ideal family who's values align so perfectly that there is never any issues. Now extend that family to everyone on the planet. At an advanced enough stage of enlightenment, all resistance to what is ceases. The duality between selfishness and selflessness is shattered. The idea of doing anything to harm another person seems ridiculous. The idea of taking from others to suit yourself seems counterproductive, because everyone IS you. Once you realize your groundless nature and your identity becomes completely fluid, it makes more sense to abide as the entire earth rather than as an individual. You don't have to tell someone not to cut off their own arm haha. Anyone who claims "full" enlightenment doesn't come with complete morality simply hasn't reached a high enough stage of enlightenment. Enlightenment is different for everyone though. Morality is simply one aspect of awakening, just like an awakening into equanimity, infinite intelligence, or nothingness.

@Leo Gura 2 things: 1. Am I the only dreamer on this physical plane? Or is everyone dreaming up their own reality in an infinite amount of parallel universes? I assume you don't believe that the other people are empty shelves. Awakening certainly seems like reality is a dream, and I (ego) tried to change the dream, that of course doesn't work for me. The I that dreams, is this a collective dream where everyone influences a certain part of the dream, or does every soul just dreams something else? 2. If the dream ends when you die, you shouldn't take precautions about your own death, no need to tell your family good bye, no need to keep a small (or big) inheritance for your children. Physical death might not be stopping the collective dream either. So it's either this physical plane is Gods dream limiting itself to this character within the dream, or God limits itself to all the separate entities within the dream. Now Leo claims that it is possible to consciously manipulate the dream, but isn't that what is already happening. The I that wants to manipulate the dream is always part of the dream that is dreamt by the higher self. So this would explain why it's not possible for the dream character to lucid dream, it's just possible for the awakened I. But the awakened self doesn't want anything, it already has everything it wants right? So full enlightenment might not make you so okay with the dream that you don't even desire/think to change the dream, because the lower self would have to be perfectly aligned with the higher self.

Well, i am not enlightened but i noticed that I had several profound insights in my self-inquiry journey that affected permanently how I experience Reality. Sometimes people talk and teach about enlightenment as it is a binary thing, one moment you are lost in Maya and the next moment BOOM, full enlightenment, you are God. In my experience, it can be slow and gradual with peak experiences along the way.

The ending to this is the sound of full enlightenment, I want this track played at my cremation if that's how I decide to go out

I agree with @electroBeam that when you are full enlightened you must leave your body. Otherwise you are like masters and teachers, you still see the truth or you are very close to it but you still have to believe in a body, etc... even if you say "I am not a body or mind, etc etc"... Because full enlightenment is when GOD reaches the point that it comes back totally to the source and then it begins again in an infinite loop. What I am not sure is what you are saying about being afraid of something that GOD doesn't know. Maybe I am wrong, but I always considered GOD and TRUTH ALL KNOWING. But I can be deluded too... Anyway this post is really powerful. And it makes us think and contemplate crazy ideas that the ego doesn't like. :-)

Iv'e dabbled in the mystical writings of various religious traditions and many accounts of the ancient mystics from the past and I wonder is it possible that one can be both extremely religious and pious, if not fanatical to one's traditional faith and be fully enlightened? Someone like John of the cross comes to mind. Reading accounts of his life he seems to have lead a very intense contepmlative life but was also loyal to the Catholic church. So are religious traditions a viable path for full enlightenment?

isn't it good to do musterbation After full enlightenment,? is musterbation make sober?

I should mention that a lot of people claim enlightenment when they're in fact deluding themselves. Enlightenment is what I was describing, and it is incredibly difficult to achieve. A lot of people think they have conquered fear for good, but when you test them you will find that they're full of fears and attachments. It's also important to mention that by no means I am claiming enlightenment. I am still a pitiful fearful human being with a stupid deluded closed-mind. Full openness requires literally insane amount of courage. That's full enlightenment.

I think it's possible. But I also think you will eventually surrender it. Full enlightenment, paradoxically, is too good to keep for yourself. So you will share it by creating infinite others. God is so selfless that God cannot bask in full enlightenment forever, hence creating the finite world. Ta-da! How do you think you got here??? Or maybe you are such a selfish prick that you will just stay in full enlightenment forever