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@Leo GuraRelative to your mid-to-late 20s, and after all of your self work, what proportion of your day do you spend in a state of peace and contentment as opposed to neuroticism, obsession, planning and doing, chasing the next thing, guilt and resentment, etc.? I guess if thoughts were a pendulum of negative to positive, how has your pendulum shifted over the last ten years? How about things like TV and the Internet? Are those less enjoyable or enticing than before, because the benefit they give you is far less than the bliss you can experience by just being, or do you spend only a small proportion of your time in those types of elevated states?

So I started meditation about 5 years ago because Leo recommended in a video, I was doing a sam harris guided meditation for years but it was kind of mechanical and I didn't really understand the path. I got serious about the path in the fall of 2019, started posting on the forum and experimenting with psychedelics' and saw enlightenment as something achievable for myself. I managed to have a peak experience after only a few solo psychedelic trips and that's what really opened me up. I was basically laying in my bed, and after a few hours of just listening to music and trying to process the complex emotions from the trip, I repeated a zgochen teaching I learned from Sam Harris, Look for yourself/ Be aware of being aware, and from repeating this I was able to quiet the mind and I had a sort of energetic unwinding, culminating in my attention going to the center of my head/behind the eyes and then my head kind of popped open/crown opened and I had an incredibly blissful and energizing experience. I realized that reality is all good, and I had never felt so incredible in my life. I've done probably 20-30 trips of LSD/shrooms since then but It was always a mystery to me how I reached this place so I've been kind of tracing my steps and trying to understand how i got there. Following that trip It was very rough. I was doing trips, but I couldn't reach that same place and i ended up getting really depressed and suicidal because I felt so hopeless that I couldn't reach that same place again. I thought my life would be forever transformed, but even though I knew about how good life could be, i just wasn't living from that place and it was awful. A big insight i got from my psychedelics' trips was I noticed that I would always get very horny on my good trips, and a lot of my trips involved overcoming deep nausea and vomitting. I actually can't look at a tab of LSD without gagging, and when I take psyche now there's a good chance I'll vomitt or experience severe nausea. But i also realized that the nausea can be sort of cleansed from your system if you go the root of the sensation. I've had experiences where I felt super nasuea on shrooms, and because I went deeper into the nausea and the sensations of headache in the head, I found a sort of energetic hotspot and when I felt into the hot spot it felt like the suffering/nausea got completely wiped from my system. Almost like a computer getting debugged. I've had stomach issues my whole life and I never really understood them, but I knew they were related to suffering and unhappiness. I never really bought into materialist paradigms around what causes stomach issues. Right now I can literally feel a discomfort in my stomach, but I haven't given too much attention to just loving my stomach sensations, but I will moving forward. I also realized that uncovering my sexuality was a big way to relieve suffering for myself. On my trips when I'd get very nauseous, I realized that one of the only things that worked to help alleivate the suffering, aside from vomitting, was to feel into my horniness and let it out. It's like being horny was the cure for my headaches haha, so it felt better to watch porn or something then just sit here in agony from the headache. I have to work on this too, my family is entirely sexually represeed, I was thinking the other day that I actually have never seen any sign of horniess from my mom or dad, and I actually thought my parents never had sex until I was like 20 and realized they probably did it in secret. I think the key here is just to create space for sexual feelings, and thens tart to love accept them as they arise. I also realized that my nasal congestion was related to my spiritual blockage. I am someone who always has kind of a stuffed nose, and I never cry. But on my good trips it literally feels like somoene is breaking my nose, which is probably my sinuses getting cleared out, and the end result is feeling way better and a full perceptual shift in how I view reality. I also noticed that vomitting helped clear my nose but so far I haven't cleared it fully without psychidelics. Interestingly, during my best trips my nasal passage become so clear it felt like I was breathing bliss clearly into my being from the entire univerise. It was like I had tubes flowing into my being from everywhere, and when I would breathe it was fully of bliss haha. Sorry it's disorganized but I just wanted to lay out as much as I could. Feel free to ask for clarification on any point

Real intimacy if you will, is indeed intoxicating. Practice, contemplate - play around with - you can get drunk anytime, anywhere, without anyone, without doing anything. Intimacy as a most unbelievable icing on that cake of youness. Let the mind fool you a bit on from where this ecstasy & bliss arise, but not too much. Lose yourself in it, yet know yourself as it.

@Marcel I'm not sure where my journal is going anymore I will see how it goes but on top of you guys I'm also going to send a thank you as well to all those that contributed in their own unique way... @SLuxy (I haven't watched the video but you reminded me to get more in touch with my intuition!) @SriSriJustinBieber (I'm certainly no bliss junky yet but you've shined the light!) @modmyth (loved learning from your experiences) @IAmReallyImportant (everyone deserves another chance, taken you off ignore I hope you are well) Thank you again everyone I wouldn't have been able to come this far without your support !

Well the individual attempting to be free is an illusion. Freedom is the unconditional love for everything exactly the way it is which includes the judgments, the happiness, the fear, the confusion, the anger, the bliss..... Freedom is that free completely all inclusive. No it is not an illusion, if there is individual, trying to be free is real for him/her. Therefore, when individual loves everything there will be no more judgments, happiness, fear, confusion for the individual there will be only love there for him/her, which is the way to nothingness. Of course you can say you are already nothing. Yes it is true. However, as you mentioned above that if your house is burned or your sister is get raped, this is not even close to be nothing. These shows that your thought process is still so active. Because, you maybe never see the house burns or anyone getting raped. Just because of you learned and thought of it, therefore you suffer. So illusion is still is real for you and being free is real for you. Just an advice, Dont get me wrong but contemplate brother and meditate. This is stuff can not be learned by reading, you have to walk the path. Peace ☮️ much love !

Well the individual attempting to be free is an illusion. Freedom is the unconditional love for everything exactly the way it is which includes the judgments, the happiness, the fear, the confusion, the anger, the bliss..... Freedom is that free completely all inclusive. It's so close it seems hidden which is why Tony Parsons describes it as the Open Secret. ❤

Money and life are seen as good, and cancer and death are seen as bad for that which believes its alive. When suffering and bliss are seen as equal where can a problem arise and manifest. ❤

Oh you play with the balance. Play and play until your mind learns and basically gets molded into shape from learning that y happens when x is tweaked. For me it ended up being a very light touch of attention on the object with rather the majority of conscious power on the periphery — but then you use a sort of balancing act where you’re ready to change that balance depending on hindrances that arise. Basically, it’s incredibly 1. subtle, and 2. dynamic. Don’t be overwhelmed, this will develop in time rather automatically if you’re experiencing at least some joy/bliss and sitting an hour every single day.

Exactly, how about you ask others instead of assuming that they don't know? All I can tell you is what I know through an ego-death experience that I've had through LSD. Just imagine what it's like to exist, but you exist with no human senses. No thoughts, no feelings, no sense of touch, sight, sound, hearing, taste, smell. Lights off completely, and all that is left is your awareness. You exist but you don't exist as a human being, you exist as nothing. Your sense of self is completely non-existent. And since there's no human thoughts or feelings of suffering or needing anything, then what else could there be? People will say nothing, love, consciousness, infinity, or whatever else. But what I personally experienced through that recent experience of mine was just pure bliss. There was no memory or thought that physical life even existed, it all just disappeared as if it were just a dream that I had. How else can it be other than this? So, this is what I know. It's been a while since I've watched Leo's video on death, but I recommend that you watch it if you haven't. I believe he mentions in the video, the same exact thing that I just mentioned here.

I would recommend reading the book "The Mind Illuminated" which provides a long term road map of meditation progress across 10 progressively deeper stages of practice. As you progress across the stages, your experiences while meditating will become progressively more mystical and intrinsically rewarding. Once you're established at around stage 7 - 8, you can also start learning how to access jhana states, which are even more mystical. However it's worth mentioning this as well - as you start to reliably gain access to these mystical states with practice, their value starts to diminish. While on the one hand, it's utterly profound that the deepest states of emotional happiness and pleasure exist entirely from within, we do start to realize that this mundane, boring, fatigued, sober state as it is in this moment is just as mystical as the most profound mystical states you can achieve through meditation or even psychedelics. A mark of maturity on the path is recognizing an equilibrium across all states. This recognition of the 'divinity' of all states, all perceptions, all forms of suffering, bliss, dissatisfaction, and satisfaction, as they are, exactly as they appear, as an expression of the Absolute is where meditation practice leads in the long run. From this context, meditation is not about getting something or doing anything at all, it is merely about being exactly where you are. There is nothing to do and no where to go. Letting these profound mystical states carry you home, carry you nowhere at all is the path. I may also recommend practicing "do nothing" meditation in tandem with the techniques outlined in T.M.I., is it will help balance out some of the inevitable over-efforting goal based practice produces. When it comes to daily practice, I would establish a daily minimum, something so stupid easy you can't not do it. For me, it's 10 minutes per day. I know even when I feel my worst, I can sit down and do 10 minutes. When I first began practice, I would have made it something like 1 minute per day as my daily minimum. Daily consistency is the most important variable of practice when you're first starting out. Ideally, you want to work up to an hour per day. As far as motivation, this is why I recommend "The Mind Illuminated" as it gives you something extremely tangible to work towards while also facilitating absurdly deep states of consciousness. The skills you develop using that system will serve invaluable in pretty much all domains of life and every step along your own spiritual path. But more than that, meditation is an entry way into God, into what you really are. The amount of empowerment, fulfillment, wisdom, compassion you start to experience when being able to sit in your own being is ineffable. The skills you develop from meditation are THE keys to living a good life... Yes it's a fucking grind for the first few years. Hell maybe the first 10. But if you're serious about the work, it becomes magic, all of life becomes magic as the distinction between practice and every day life fall away. In my opinion, trust that feeling in your gut that's pulling you to turn within. The fact that we live in an age of such distraction and over-stimulation yet you feel a calling to turn your attention inward is beyond significant. It's only until you advance a long will you realize just how significant it really is. Hope this helps.

just read this jewel from nisargadatta so thought you would enjoy " When we concentrate our attention on the origin of thought, the thought process itself comes to an end; there is a stillness, which is pleasant, and again the process starts. Turning from the external world and enjoying the objectless bliss, the mind feels that the world of objects is not for it. Prior to this experience the unsatiating sense enjoyments constantly challenged the mind to satisfy them, but from the inward turn onwards then its interest in them begins to fade. Once the internal bliss is enjoyed, the external happiness will lose its charm. One who has tasted the inward bliss is naturally loving and free from envy, contented and happy with others' prosperity, friendly and innocent and free from deceit. He is full of the mystery and wonder of the bliss. One who has realised the Self could never inflict pain on other. In this way, with heartfelt love and devotion, the devotee turns to God; and when he is blessed with His vision and Grace, he feels ever happy in His presence. The constant presence establishes a virtual identity between the two. While seeking the presence of the supreme Soul, the devotee renounces all associations in his life, from the meanest to the best, and having purged his being of all associations, he automatically wins the association with the supreme Self. One who has attained to the position of unstinted emancipation will never be disliked by others, for the people themselves are the very Self-luminous soul, though ignorant of the fact. In this world of immense variety, different beings are suffering from different kinds of ailments, and yet they are not prepared to give up the physical frame, even when wailing under physical and mental pain. If this be so, then men will not be so shortsighted as to avoid their saviour, the enlightened soul. That overflowing reservoir of bliss, the beatific soul, does confer only bliss on the people by his loving light. Even the atmosphere around him heartens the suffering souls. He is like the waters of a lake that gives nourishment to the plants and trees around the brink and the grass and fields nearby. The saint gives joy and sustaining energy to the people around him. Spiritual thought is of the Highest. This seeking of the Highest is called the "first half" by the saints. A proper understanding of this results in the vision of God, and eventually matures into the certainty of the true nature of the Self in the "latter half". One who takes to the path of the spirit starts with contemplation and propitiation. It is here, for the first time, that he finds some joy in prayer and worship. At this preliminary stage he gets the company of co-aspirants. Reading of the lives and works of past incarnations of God, of rishis, of saints and sages, singing the glories of the Name, visiting temples, and a constant meditation on these result in the photic and phonic experiences of the mystic life; his desires are satisfied to an extent now. Thinking that he has had the vision of God, he intensifies his efforts of fondly remembering the name of God and His worship. In this state of the mind, the devotee quite frequently has a glimpse of his cherished Deity, which he takes to be the Divine vision and is satisfied with it. At this juncture, he is sure to come into contact with a saint. The saint, and now his preceptor, makes it plain to him that what he has had is not the Real vision, which is beyond the said experiences, and is only to be had through Self-realisation. At this point, the aspirant reaches the stage of the meditator. In the beginning, the aspirant [sadhaka] is instructed into the secrets of his own person, and of the indwelling spirit; the meaning and nature of prana, the various plexuses, and the nature and arousal of the kundalini, and the nature of the Self. Later on, he comes to know of the origin of the five elements, their activity, radiation, and merits and defects. Meanwhile his mind undergoes the process of purification and acquires composure, and this the aspirant experiences through the deep-laid subtle center of the Indweller; he also knows how and why it is there, only that the deiform element is kindled. This knowledge transforms him into the pure, eternal, and spiritual form of a Satguru who is now in a position to initiate others into the secrets of the spirit. The stage of sadhakahood ends here. As the great saint Tukarama said, the aspirant must put in ceaseless efforts in the pursuit of spiritual life. Thoughts must be utilised for Self-knowledge. He must be alert and watchful in ascertaining the nature of this "I" that is involved in the affairs of pleasure and pain arising out of sense experience. We must know the nature of the active principle lest its activities be led astray. We should not waste our energies in useless pursuits, but should use those energies in the pursuit of the Self and achieve identity with God. Spiritual life is so great, so deep, so immense, that energy pales into insignificance before it, yet this energy tries to understand it again and again. Those who try to understand it with the help of the intellect are lost to it. Rare is the one who, having concentrated on the source atom of the cosmic energy, enjoys the bliss of spiritual contemplation. But there are scores of those who take themselves to be spiritually inspired and perfect beings. They expect the common herd to honour and respect their every word. The ignorant people rush towards them for spiritual succour and do their bidding. In fact, the pseudo-saints are caught in a snare of greed, hence what the people get in return is not the blessings of satisfaction, but ashes. The self-styled man of God, speaking ad nauseum about spiritual matters, thinks himself to be perfect, but others are not so sure. As regards a saint, on the other hand, men are on the lookout for ways to serve him more and more, but as the ever contented soul, steeped in beatitude, desires nothing, they are left to serve in their own way, which they do with enthusiasm, and they never feel the pressure. Greatness is always humble, loving, silent and satisfied. Happiness, tolerance, forbearance, composure and other allied qualities must be known by everyone; just as one experiences bodily states such as hunger, thirst, etc., one. must, with equal ease, experience in oneself the characteristics connoted by the word "saint". As we know for certain that we need no more sleep, no more food, at a given moment, so too we can be sure of the above characteristics from direct experience. One can then recognise their presence in others with the same ease. This is the test and experience of a tried spiritual leader. "

I think I’m having a smaller awakening. Into self-love. And into my body. I have tears in my eyes writing this, it feels amazing, and I wish for everyone to have this kind of experience. This experience has lasted for a couple of weeks now, but it seems like it is not fading, but on the contrary - it seems like it is growing. Like it is still developing in me. I have so much pleasure from just being in this physical body. It’s not like I am in constant bliss, I can definitely feel pain, both physically and emotionally, but it is like the constant bliss is right underneath the surface and I can experiment with tapping into it. Haha. I went to the dentist without anesthesia. I almost had an orgasm from the sun hitting my bare skin through the window. The best thing is the sounds. At my very first baby trip (on LSD) years ago, I had this experience that I could feel sounds in my body. I remember the sound of someone pushing a shopping card over the sidewalk and how the sound kept vibrating in my body - creating an extreme amount of pleasure. During different trips through the years, such experiences have returned. But I’m not tripping now and it’s still here. Maybe not as intense, but I can tap into it without any difficulties. It is like I have become aware on an experiential level, that everything is vibration. Here is stuff that I did recently, leading up to this experience. I did them all with not more than a few weeks pause in-between: A little bit more than a week where I intensively practiced The Completion Process by Teal Swan – one to two times a day. (To those who don’t recognize this practice, it is a kind of hypnosis/inner-child-work that you can easily do on yourself. The purpose is to deal with difficult emotions from the root level, and in many ways, I guess it is also a perfect method to generate self-love towards neglected parts of yourself. I can highly recommend the practice, which you can find in this book: https://www.amazon.com/Completion-Process-Practice-Yourself-Together/dp/1401951449 During this week I went very deep, into both actual memories, and visualizations of more abstract feelings. It occurred to me that a lot of the fear in my body that I wasn’t dealing with, ended up as a sort of blockage when doing psychedelics and other development practices. A seven-day ayahuasca retreat with four ceremonies, almost in a row. This was my second ayahuasca retreat and where the first one, last summer, had more of an existential flair to it, where I experienced non-duality and all that stuff, this retreat was more about my childhood and the collective female consciousness. During the trips, memories from my childhood were mixed up with memories from my mother’s childhood, books that have been read to me, childhood fantasy games I played, and also stuff I have read about or heard in the news. And I had to live through it all, it was pure pain and pure fear with glimpses of strength and love. Maybe I should add that I had a very abuse and violent childhood. The same was the case for my mother. In one of the ceremonies, I re-lived being a woman, murdered in a very violent way by a man. I had nowhere to run, I just had to be with it, so I did. In one of the ceremonies, the pain and horror subsided to a very powerful feeling where one of the female shamans, together with myself, could pull all this invisible pain and torture out of my body and throw it into the fire. It was very empowering, and I felt like an invincible witch giving birth to myself. Also, the whole day before this ceremony, I had had menstruation cramps without bleeding, they were stronger than normal – like I felt like I was going into labor. Which I guess I in some way I was. The last ceremony was however the most notable. Before we started, the lead shaman guided us through a hypnosis exercise, where we stood in front of a screen, showing us what we were supposed to work with, during the ceremony. I was first shown a picture of my mother getting beaten in the head by one of her ex-boyfriends, then my mother getting strangled in the kitchen by my father, and then, at last, I saw myself as a teenager getting strangled by my ex-boyfriend when I was in high school. Drinking the cup of ayahuasca that night, I had tears running down my face because I knew that I had to work with all this collective shit between males and females, and how it is insanely painful. I was very determined to go through it though. It has created too much pain in my life. It has to end now. The ceremony was me sitting in constant fear for the full night. I drank another cup when I realized that this time, the pain wouldn’t subside, and I had to stay with it for the full ceremony– again the only way out was through. It’s difficult to describe those kinds of experiences, but I just tried to be calm with the intense emotion and at some point, I asked if I could lay close to the opening of the tippy. The helpers also covered me in heavy blankets. But other than that, I was alone in holding the fear. As I knew it would, it lasted the whole ceremony, and it was as if it didn’t have a resolution. Ten-day Vipassana Course This was my second Vipassana course. I did the last one-two years ago. I was a bit reluctant to sign up for this, because of doing Ayahuasca only a couple of weeks before the start of the course. I remembered my first ayahuasca experience, where I had been very sick many days afterward, totally dissociating from my body – especially the senses of touch and taste I had lost. Luckily this time, maybe because I had been practicing the completion process, I had been less scared of facing my inner shit, so I was feeling good and was not dissociating. The Vipassana course ended up being the perfect way to integrate the ayahuasca ceremonies. As I mentioned, I had a feeling that the last ceremony never really ended. It was as if it continued into the Vipassana experience. During the ten days, I contemplated a lot of stuff about my relationship with romantic love and men. I also understood the technique in a very deeper way. I had many realizations about how I’m constantly reacting to sensations without thinking, how I have this thirst for good sensations that never ends, and how it is the cause of a lot of my suffering. Also, I had a few days that felt like waking up after a bad party. Like – regretting stuff I have done and said, or feeling pain now being aware of people in the past that I have hurt. In the meditations, I was better able to let go of the need for pleasure than in my previous course. I had a beautiful experience where all the pain and pleasure in my body simply was realized as vibrations. Then the voice in my head became a vibration and disappeared into itself. For a short moment, there was total silence. But it was not...nothing or empty. It was… peace, bliss, a good sensation, but a different kind of good. It was just… I was just. being. Then on the last night of Vipassana, my ayahuasca trip had its ending. Pure pain and fear a whole night. I am suffering from extreme stomach aces that the doctors haven’t been able to figure out. It wakes me up at night if I eat too much or eat the wrong food. On the last day, we had one more meal than the other days and that gave me the pain that night. Normally I would go out of bed to exercise or do yoga (because that is the only thing that helps) but I didn’t want to wake my roommate up, so I stayed in bed. Then I began to drift off into sleep, but the pain kept waking me, so it was in this state between awake and asleep that I started to have a nightmare. It felt very much like tripping. I don’t think I have ever been so scared in my life, not even on the scariest ayahuasca ceremonies. This was the worst my stomach ace has ever been, I was cold-sweating, nauseous. And again, it came to a place where I realized the fear and the pain wouldn’t go away so I had to stay with it the full night. So, I did. And then. I’m not sure exactly when it happened. But since then, it has been so easy for me to feel love for both myself and everyone else. I look forward to meditating because it is such a pleasure. I listened to Leo’s video about self-love being the highest teaching again. He says in it, that one day we will come back to the recording, understanding it better, and I feel like that is me now. Understanding it. Coming back to self-love. I have so much compassion for the child and teenager I was. Everything I went through. I am so happy that I am experiencing this now because when I think back on the beginning of my adulthood, I have struggled so much, and I have been so sad and unnecessarily scared. At the same time, I am aware that my memories - what did and did not happen, what I remember in pictures, and what I remember as feelings or sensations. It doesn't really matter. It is the feeling of owning the past but.. well maybe more of owning the experience of the past, that I have. Because my experience in the now is the only thing there is. I guess I never really understood what big a part of my misery had to do with fear. I am not rid of the fear, I still experience fear and panic when I wake up in the morning, but I am more aware of it now, dealing with it – where usually I just numbed it with a long to-do-list, jumping out of bed to have enough time to do everything. I know I still have a long way to go, and I am motivated to grow even more, but if this should be the only step I ever reach, I would actually be quite satisfied, haha. Just wanted to share this – especially that it was valuable for me to do self-therapy – ayahuasca – vipassana in a row. I also had a few talks with a therapist who was very wise in regards to the emotional body before it all. I try as best as I can to practice the completion process for an hour or so in the morning. I do the Vipassana meditation for an hour before going to bed at night. Ending with a loving-kindness mediation. Practicing this helps me stay aware of both my emotions and physical sensations, and I think that by keeping these practices, I help the awakening to grow instead of fade. One big change I also feel in my daily life is that I am enjoying so much to just be alone (or with my dog). These days I have zero need to spend time with friends or create new relationships. It’s not that I don’t want that, it’s just that right now I have so much to experience just in being me. I’m also getting more creative and feel like I want to consume and create art all the time. The world is so amazing. Existing is so cool. I don’t want to miss a single moment haha. Like, it is not like that ecstatic feeling of being in love. It is more like calm. Like secure. I feel secure. Thanks for reading this far if you did. Love you (of course).

@martins name Ah okay. Hope you get better! Thank you for the summary. ”1. Happiness is non-duality. It's important to know this experientially. Love and appreciate it wherever it's found.” I can see how it’s important to know this experientially. But it sounds really hard to do. What practices would you recommend to experience it? And how do you love and appreciate it wherever it is found? Where is it found? ”2. Open your second chakra, it's the ability to enjoy, feel pleasure and passion and to be connected with life. When you suppress desire you can feel a somatic contraction in your lower back and you go into a subtily painful and fearful state. It makes you feel separate from life which is dualistic. That's not a quality of an enlightened being. Bliss is the road to God.” Thanks martin. I will practice doing the techniques on your pleasure chakra post.

Wise; ^^ that is true in a sense — but get this, it is for that reason that the real power comes with the ability to produce as much joy (or bliss; peace; etc) as you want at any time. You don’t need to maintain anything! Also, there’s wholesome joy that has no cost in the way you describe — in fact it invigorates you further. And the following may be a bit harder to accept: even the lows can be appreciated and even enjoyed, in a way, for what they are, basically every bit as much as the highs.

There is no life in nirvana, just the moment, not being identified with the thoughts. You move with the moment therefore there is no movement nor you. If you want name the feeling as bliss, you can however as soon as you name it, it aint nirvana, because with naming And labeling self is still there because it comes from the so called mind.

Obviously, by definition. But I was directly answering your question, not making a general claim; you entirely misunderstood my point: Imagine being so imperturbably happy, at peace, and overflowing with causeless joy, that you no longer dream of wasting time thinking about getting more of it, since at any time, you can have as much of it as you want. If you think that’s not possible, well you’re simply about as far off as you could possibly be. Happiness is your nature and your birthright. Q: "...what's the percentage of progress you made in this grand project..." A: Immeasurably vast; total. If you are uninterested in as much bliss as you want, any time you want it, that's perfectly fine -- I can totally understand and respect that. Maybe you genuinely don't care about it, and that seriously is great! But IF the only reason you're uninterested is that you believe it's not possible for you? Well, all I'm doing is suggesting that's simply a false belief.

@preventingdiabetes @preventingdiabetes@preventingdiabetes I tried to last year but my physical health is too bad to be able to sit still for that amount of time without destroying my back. Maybe one day I'll try again when I've built up some finances and health. I'd like to summarize what I've been trying to communicate in my previous posts: 1. Happiness is non-duality. It's important to know this experientially. Love and appreciate it wherever it's found. 2. Open your second chakra, it's the ability to enjoy, feel pleasure and passion and to be connected with life. When you suppress desire you can feel a somatic contraction in your lower back and you go into a subtily painful and fearful state. It makes you feel separate from life which is dualistic. That's not a quality of an enlightened being. Bliss is the road to God.

Life is harder than just bliss. Some of us can't just go 'straight to bliss'. That makes no sense.

Doing more could look like following your bliss instead, for if you follow that which makes you happy, well you will be happier, and if something is relevant for you to look at in terms of past traumas etc, it will appear to you along the way. If you look at trauma from a blissful state, it's quite easy to dissolve, if you look at it from a not so blissful state, in general one simply start seeing more and more and more trauma and feels overwhelmed and trapped inside a life determined by event they didn't choose to experience and starts seeing how it affects them now in relationships or whatever, etc. So yeah, just do what makes you happy in each moment (it doesn't have to be big things, it can look like eating chocolate or going for a walk).

As long as there’s stillness, transformation, bright alertness, and bliss, you don’t need to tweak anything you’re currently doing — otherwise, you perhaps could. Researching the jhanas can be useful if you come across any sticking points or profound states that scare you and render you unsure of how to proceed — Daniel Ingram gets into probably the most technical detail of anyone; Rob Burbea provided complete info on it as well. Many other sources for kundalini progression. The gist of it can be found in Culadasa’s TMI. Keep on doing your practice though. Sounds like it’s going very well. Tailoring and tweaking your practice with increasing subtlety is the name of the game; a very beautiful part of practice. Perhaps begin with openness, and then develop each of the following: steadiness, sensitivity, patience, and play.

I made the mistake last autumn and started to basically force myself to do kriya sessions with a 'kill-the-ego' Jed McKenna'esque zeal. Did like 1h+ sessions. At first tried to be strict but then started to explore the technique and let intuition guide through it. Then learned some tidbits from SantataGamanas books. Breathing and focusing solely on point between eyebrows (head chakra) and 'knocking' on it with 6 oms every in and out breath. But I freestyled it and started to switch between head and crown chakra which had an orgasmic effect to it, pure bliss, but it was not lasting, and some sessions felt really painful emotionally, like I was going crazy inside before I came to that point. Finished sessions with yoni mudra, also recklessly focusing on crown chakra. I later learned that going too quickly towards crown can have serious negative effects. Throws your energy off balance, basically too much upper chakras focus and not enough lower chakras or something like that. Then again it produced some natural highs I can compare to peak psych experiences (ego death, 'falling into void or sky' that was very similar to 5meo breakthrough, and also energy focused on abdominal area and a powerful sense that I am the devil and that I had all the power of the world like I'm going to get what I want no matter the consequences - kind of stuff) right after yoni mudra (also done recklessly, I think like 3 yoni mudras in a row focused on crown chakra after having done 1h of pranayama got me those peaks) but more 'clean' so to speak, but still fleeting as I feel kriya can get you to peak states very quickly, but unless you deliberately remain there then it wont have much effect outside sessions. Negative side effects started coming, I did a deep dive into experimenting with kriya after 5meo breakthrough. But I started to feel extremely depressed, lots of mood swings, and weird bodily sensations, like a cracked out feeling in my head, etc. But also very profound peace, and ineffable states of pure bliss outside of kriya sessions in daily life aswell. But it was too uncontrolled, very rollercoastery with my emotional state, i started to become disfunctional with work, took a brake from school, made an irrational decision to move cities during covid and leave old study-career plan behind without much financial security, ended up as a bolt delivery driver for a fee months before returning). I went down some really really bad places emotionally, like 10/10 nihilistic depression holes. But they passed when I somehow accepted these places. And finally I stopped kriya sessions because I needed to start recovering from the symptoms which had become so unbearable I was basically suicidal for most of time. In hindsight I'd say I developed Kundalini syndrome symptoms and aggravated them further by forcing myself to do kriya even when i didnt feel like it. And being too reckless with it. And I let my daily life go through a rollercoaster, basically 1 year wasted i that regard, but lots of peaks and downs, lots of wisdom gathered. Lots of wisdom about the negatives of spiritual work mostly, and what can happen if you take it too quickly too far without having basic needs met and a healthy ego to begin with (finances, social life, sex, etcetc) but it waa covid and I was sick of life so whatever, guess i needed to smack my head against the wall until I decided to begin actually loving myself. Tbh I now kind of understand what probably Connor Murphy has gone through, I feel similar streaks of manic unhinged creativity but I can always control whether or not I let them amok or not. Anyways, lessons from me to you - intuitively working on it good, but don't stray from technique too much, mb they just need time and practice. Probably don't abuse yoni mudra and crown chakra, also kriya supreme fire is abuseable if you have heard from it. Heart chakra, good to focus on (read more from books about this). Also don't neglect basic needs etcetc. And probably the best advice from this response of mine - learn to actually enjoy and love kriya sessions (rather than force yourself to do it). But if your practice doesn't do much for you yet then maybe you need more gasoline to feed the flames so-to-speak (experiment with more powerful techniques, variations), just dont overdo it and learn when to stop. As far as books to have a much better understanding of kriya techniques and stuff read SantataGamanas books on it and def Ennio Nimis' book aswell. To counterbalance them if you do get some negative symptoms then Tara Springett is your gal to turn to (Enlightenment through the Path of Kundalini, Healing Kundalini Syndrome, Higher Consciousnes Healing books). Basically she's no1 person a jhana junkie crackhead like me needed to get myself out of this. But yeah, TLDR kriya yoga works, and doing it your own way is good, but best to read more, to make sure you arent making mistakes and fucking up your energy body.

Believe it or not, I actually agree with both of you. There is no external "goal" of a blissful state. It's about recognizing the bliss that's already available.

Have you started seeing the futility of this grand, bottomless project of trying to make yourself happy and secured? Has it worked? Are you completely at ease, bliss, secured, without fear and anxiety? If not, what's the percentage of progress you made in this grand project over your 10-20-30-40-50 years of lifetime? Do you see the impossibility of this game which is rigged against you? Why do you even try? Why do you still believe you can make yourself happy, secured, fulfilled permanently? Why not simply acknowledge and accept the utter fragility of yourself? Happiness and wellbeing is NOT something you deserve. When did you buy into this bullshit story? Have you lost your mind? Just look at you! If you were a Greek god with a lifetime of 10 billion years, who knows no physical or mental exhaustion, who possesses immense prowess and can survive even a planetary destruction; it would be rational to claim that such a being has legit high chance of deserving and claiming happiness, well being and permanent security. On the other hand look at you! How fragile and vulnerable you are! It takes a zillion things in proper place in your environment and psycholology to make a moment of respite for you while a minor little thing like a virus, temperature, gravity, accident, discomforting thought, tough emotion can legit screw you over. It takes like 15-20 years of healthy childhood, education and environment to have a decent, high esteemed self, while only one traumatic event or imagination can plant a deep imprint in you and screw you over badly for life! Can you simply let go and accept your vulnerability? Can you let go of this impossible project and assumption that you can actually secure yourself? Can you totally accept your fate for having pain, grief, fear, depression as your usual and natural condition and simply stop trying to make it otherwise? Just look at you trying so hard to build and maintain your sand castles in midst of a gigantic Tsunami. See how easy it is to disturb you and your fickle boundaries.. What happens if you simply give up on chasing this impossible dream? You are already bound to be screwed, right? How worse can it be? Maybe a new dimension will open up if you simply give up and accept your fate?

Oh yeah you wouldn’t pray like that unless you believed in a God outside of you. No such God exists. You are God (or there’s no you, only God), but if you haven’t recognized that, prayer can be used. Inquire into who it is that’s praying — that’s God wearing the ego mask. The point of prayer at the highest level is realization of union with God / lack of separation between you and God. Because if God exists, you are God, since God by the definition I’m referring to has no other. The means by which this happens is complete and utter stillness of mind. You may want to become skilled in meditation first, but really they’re kind of the same thing as long as you can produce at least some modest level of well-being at will (getting to that point is the hardest part so don’t worry, it’s normal if you can’t already) — this enables less restlessness and more stillness, which produces more pleasure, which produces more stillness, and so on to an inflection point called jhana where the bliss takes off exponentially and you feel so unimaginably good you basically won’t even believe it — it’s a different order of well-being; shocking, even. Then it’s all over — you’ll never search for happiness primarily outside yourself again. I’ve heard credible rumors that jhana may not be for everyone, but the important thing is bliss-on-demand, and that is in fact available to everyone with a bit of practice.

@m0hsen And progressing in jhana is about releasing attachment to the current level — the later Jhanas basically have no room for physical pleasure because it’s old news — it’s recognized that the ultimate reason you like the pleasure is the peace it provides, and then you essentially absorb into pure peace, which interestingly is immeasurably more sublime than pure pleasure. Though you can always revisit earlier Jhanas. You generally pass through each one distinctly on the way up and down — known as the jhanic arc. Letting that arc flow naturally is the best way to practice them. With great skill you can enter into specific jhanas without having to follow the arc, but again the best way to practice is to let them progress naturally: i.e. the mind naturally begins to sense that the overwhelming exhilarating body buzz of 1st jhana is less sublime than the bliss itself produced by that exhilaration and so it absorbs into the blissful happiness of 2nd jhana like a warm bath (ecstasy/exhilaration now in the background); then mind begins to tire still of the overwhelming orgasmic exhilaration and so turns away from it entirely, giving way to pure happiness completely divested of bodily-exhilaration (3rd jhana), which is almost certainly not something humans are capable of outside of jhana. Abandon pleasure for peace itself (4th), abandon materiality; space; consciousness; nothingness; perception-landing (8th)... Even 1st jhana will knock your socks off though, so don’t worry about the later ones. The best word for 1st jhana is probably YEE HAW!! ? ?