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The whole suicide stuff in the meditation forum is bothering me I made this thread exactly 1 hour before that thread was made I couldn't have known that someone was going to post something like that So I felt a bit nervous when I read that thread because I was precisely going to write about death today and the topic was looming over my head since past 14 hours. What a weird coincidence? Unbelievable.

I would actually expect Leo to appear a little more often in the emotional section of the forum It gives a bad feeling when he is rarely there as though he is looking down on people with emotional issues. I understand that he is not a professional expert in such matters but even saying to someone that they should not commit suicide or self harm. If it helps it helps. I wish he did that. Im not saying regularly. But at least once a week in that section would look like he cares and doesn't look away from people who got emotional issues I mean this is a self development forum. It can look pretty demonizing to ignore emotional issues. It is a part of self development after all. Once a week appearance is not asking for too much.

I am a suicidal person on this forum. And Leo is very right about whatever he said above I have been battling suicidal thoughts since my teenage. However this forum has helped me stay afloat. Whenever I had those thoughts I wrote them in my journal or tried seeking help in the emotional support section. Yea 3 years being on this forum I reduced my suicidal tendency down by 60%. Not enough but significant progress. I cannot vouch that I won't commit suicide in the future as that is not a guarantee. Being suicidal is like living with diabetes. There are highs and lows. Some periods are suicide-thought free and some are very intense. It's an episodic problem but with constant care it can be managed. Without this forum, it would have been much harder for me to control my suicidal ideation, I could have resorted to self harm. In past 3 years my self harm incidents have been limited to 2. Which is great,given I have a long history of self harm. Just being on the forum has helped to keep suicide thoughts away a great deal even without asking members. Even if I did bad things, I will never blame the forum for it, because the forum actually helped me stay away from bad things.

That post only looks like a suicide post in retrospect. If he hadn't jumped you would never know he was seriously considering it. I will definitely make a video. I actually already recorded a video last week about nihilism which will be released some time in the next few weeks. That video clears up common misconceptions and mistakes of nihilism. But I will make a video specifically about misinterpretation of the teachings and the dangers of deconstructing one's mind. I am happy to make such a video because it is core to what I teach. Actually it doesn't matter. But that is not a truth most people are willing to understand or accept. The thing is, Truth is a very radical and dangerous thing. Which is why Truth has been suppressed from mankind for thousands of years. The thing is, when the rubber meets the road, you will not care about Truth, you will care about survival and your feelings. This is how life works. It is a game, but its a very brutal game, and when you get brutalized you will not care that it is a game because you are too hurt to care.

Wow this is kind of dark in hindsight. I would not have read that thinking this guy wanted to commit suicide but I guess you can't really tell. Well at least moving forward we can be more aware of this kind of stuff

If it had you would have heard about it. We do have suicidal people on these forums pretty regularly though. Which is why I added the following warning to the Forum Guidelines some time ago: I added this warning precisely because I expected someone at some point to do something suicidal and then blame this community for it. This was not unexpected given the thousands of weird people we get coming through here. It is important for people here to understand that dealing with suicide prevention requires a certain trained skill set and that neither I nor our Mods are trained to talk people down from suicide. That is beyond the scope of our jobs here. If we see someone who is suicidal, we generally try to talk them down from it, but we may not be skillful at it nor do we have the time and energy to catch every case of it. This forum is not a professional clinic or the like. This is a community of people casually discussing spiritual stuff. So it's important to set the right expectations. The Mods are not here to save every lost soul. They are mostly here to police against spammers and trolls. Generally we are too busy here combating trolls and spammers to offer serious one-on-one counseling or therapeutic help. Any such help is given pro-bono, without warranty, as our time and energy allows. But even so, from what I have seen, any time our Mods or even regular members hear of someone considering suicide, they do not hesitate to talk them down with compassion. Our members are actually great at that. Had Soonhei made a public post where he said he was considering jumping off a cliff, I have no doubt whatsoever that our members would have stepped in and talked him down -- assuming he was willing to listen. And I would certainly have reprimanded him for even considering such a thing seriously if my eyes caught glance of such a thread. But you also have to understand, I cannot personally see or supervise every thread on this forum. There's just too much volume of stuff here. And if you say, "Well, then shut the forum down!" Oh yeah? But then how many people will lose their lives by not having any spiritual community to talk to at all? So you see, it's not so simple. There are inherent pros and cons to running an online spiritual community. There will be good times and bad. There will be wonderful people and crazy people. There will many lives saved and a few lives lost. The nature of spiritual and personal development work is that is tends to attract some people who are struggling to get their minds straight. And sometimes you get people with really crooked minds -- where you don't even know how to begin straightening them out. It is also important to keep in mind how many lonely and lost people there on in the world who find this community and use it to improve themselves and actually save themselves from suicide. I have had plenty of people message me and tell me that if not for this community or finding my videos, they would have committed suicide or been stuck in some horrible depression or psychosis or some cult. But of course, not everyone's story will end so positively. Some people may find this forum and use it to spiral completely out of control. And you also don't know what other forums and videos and sources they are consuming besides Actualized.org. Spiritual knowledge is a very powerful tool. It can be used for the highest good, the greatest of evils, and everything in between.

@SoonHei I understand your grief and emotional turmoil, and you just wish things had unfolded differently so SoonHei would still be alive. I totally get that. However, it is important to be factually and historically accurate about "long-established religions". The amount of death, torture, hatred, pedophilia, suicide, etc caused by classical religions is orders of magnitude beyond any new age spirituality. Classical religion is not "safe" in that way, it only seems safe because it is so baked into the social fabric of society. Many people kill themselves every year from holding Christian and Islamic beliefs about homosexuality being a sin. Or from other kinds of guilt. Or they kill others out of religious hatred. Again, this is because any large scale spiritual teaching will be corrupted and misused by self-deceived ego-minds. The things I teach are tools for leading a good, moral life -- without dogmatic moralization. But a good moral life cannot be guaranteed by following any set of mechanical rules. Genuine goodness and morality requires consciousness, wisdom, intelligence, responsibility, and balance. I teach all of these things more than any religion. Classical religion teaches mechanical rules, which is not sufficient to eliminate suffering, evil, corruption, misunderstanding, or suicide. Misunderstanding within classical religion is very high. All classical religions also have esoteric and mystical cores which teach radical truths about God, Love, Heaven, Death, and Awakening. Because Truth is radical by its nature. So my point is this: be careful not to conclude that new age spirituality is the root issue here. The root issue is the tricky nature of how the mind works. The mind is extremely self-deceptive by its nature, and then it will use whatever system of ideas/beliefs to behave however it wants. Those ideas/beliefs can be atheist, theist, Christian, Islamic, New Age, Buddhist, nondual, rationalist, nihilist, capitalist, socialist, nationalist, liberal, conservative, or whatever. I know this logic doesn't take your pain away. But thinking that "the grass is greener on the other side" can add to your pain.

Again.... this is risking of turning into a witch hunt Don't do that. Be smarter and recognize that someone committed suicide and we DON'T know what he was thinking! He must have had some kind of hidden depression or some dark night of the soul, or other well-concealed problems. Nobody here ever suggested suicide.... Stop the inquisition before it becomes a pitchfork mob.... Don't fall in mass unconsciousness. (I'm talking to everyone, not just you )

Leo is not responsible for this. Anyone putting blame on Leo and his work is being far too simplistic. Everyone is eventually responsible for what they do in life although they could be misled and brainwashed in this work. I believe some people in this forum engage in too much spiritual platitudes and using empty philosophical rhetoric to explain real life problems which can be very damaging and feel like gaslighting. Not saying that this is responsible for the suicide, yet brainwashing of any form is harmful to psychological health and can easily derail you. Some objectivity is necessary. This is a question where lines between reality and spirituality are blurred and so being objective helps you to stay grounded. A few days back Leo told me to not be a pig about survival but be a butterfly hovering over survival yet not being too attached to it. The problem is such teachings look great in words but hard to test against reality. The lesson to be drawn here is that as much as you realise that all you learn about spirituality is very true, yet in real life you cannot simply apply spiritual aspects because reality of being a human is not compatible with spiritual teachings and so realize that truth is truth yet truth is not applicable in reality which is also another truth. Don't be too carried away by spiritual truths where you begin to blur lines and take everything for granted and lose sight of objectivity in everyday circumstances. Spiritual understanding should come with the awareness that the world and reality aren't operating on these principles and so learning the truth is one thing but be carefull about how you go around applying it, it shouldn't be applied literally. Logic is the key. Use objective sense with everyday situations not spiritual platitudes. It's all cute when you listen to these things but your reality shouldn't be defined around these things. Keep your life separated from teachings and understand it's limitations with respect to the real world. Some teachings are useful and so apply those and those that are not objectively useful should only be used for awareness of truth. Leo is not responsible for this. When you are into the kind of work Leo does, you need to come into it with the personal responsibility that all you do is solely based on how you interpret things. You need a serious commitment and work ethic in this kind of work where you won't do things that are irresponsible in the quest for spirituality. You need to be aware that this work is not tailored for those who are not adequately prepared to take the consequences of the revelations you will have on this path. If you think that this work is distorting your reality,then perhaps it's not meant for you, however don't blame the work or Leo. it's your level of self responsibility and open mindedness that counts on this path. You need some serious skill and intellect and responsibility to survive on this path and the struggle can be very daunting. So before you sign up for something like this,mentally take a not and understand that do's and don'ts and be aware of how not to twist your reality by what you're going to learn,hard to do but it's one of the challenges that is very inherent with such work and if you're a poor judge of reality then you're going to be having a hard time reconciling spiritual truths and objectivity. Understanding the crucial differences between objectivity based simple self help designed to improve survival versus hard spiritual practice that transcends survival is extremely important.

The problem is we don't know what's the person who is killing himself is going through. We can't put ourselves in their shoes. You never know maybe you will reach a point in your life where killing yourself seems like the only option left. I'm not with demonizing suicide as if life is always net positive and death is always net negative. It (death) exists for a reason.

This is really bad news. So sorry to hear about your loss @SoonHei As a tangent...i don't think anyone in this forum including Leo is to be held responsible for his suicide. Obviously no one here supports or encourages suicide. He was an adult and responsible for his behavior.

@Muhammad Jawad My condolences to you and all those who loved and were loved by Sunny. You doing alright mentally and emotionally all things considered Muhammad? See the thing is when our "best and only friend" kills themselves sometimes we are next in line. Are you having any suicidal thoughts? Do you have a support system, family, a therapist, or clergy you can turn to? If not, and even if so, maybe seek out a local suicide prevention phone number wherever in the world you are. If you have even a hint of seriously contemplating suicide after this crisis and tragedy of Sunny's, please get help and talk to someone immediately. It is not weakness to have such thoughts nor to seek help. It is courageous to be self honest and seek assistance in preserving life.

@kinesin Leo did not talk about physical death and did not advocate suicide. To many people misinterpret his words and then blame him for their own misinterpretations.

Jumping off a bridge is not fucking mahasamadhi ?? This is not a “conscious death” where one is entering a very powerful state of samadhi and transcends the traces of karmic bonds (which, even that is debatable). This is just suicide and a very irresponsible one at that as a result of needlessly confusing psychedelic states of mind with actual truth. That’s all that is. A reckless abandonment fueled by utter delusion. Best wishes to his wife and 2 kids.

@Nahm @Dodo @Leo Gura I can tell you no one edited his comments. He was gone. And we were drowning in our own grief and barely got into his email and passwords and eventually this forum. We wish he never stumbled upon spirituality or any of this stuff. What did he gain? He was already an amazing person. I know I sound biased but trust me. He helped others so selflessly - emotionally, financially, in any way he could. Always did the right thing. Since he was a child. I cant explain him in words here. He even guided people on their spiritual journeys and got them out of depression. Never charged a penny for it. He did everything from the pure goodness of his heart. All this spiritual jargon and ideas only hurt him and his family in the end... He was better off without it and already on the path to "heaven." His ideas of "there are no others," and life being a dream that one shouldn't get attached to made sense for the most part. But I must say this whole incident has reiterated to me why one should stick with long-established religions such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Buddhism, whatever.... and listen to well-known "Prophets" and their teachings. There is a reason why they have had billions of followers over thousands of years, without needing the internet to spread their message. And their message still gives people the tools they need to lead a good, moral life. I have personally come to the conclusion that this whole new age spirituality especially on forums and youtube is extremely dangerous. And sadly, no one seems to have thought about talking explicitly about why suicide or hurting one's body is wrong. Needs to be the title of a Youtube video on your channels... I have no words left... The pain is too much. None of this can bring him back. Best of luck to all of you in the journey of your lives!

@Strangeloop I understand. But the eternity can shine HERE, in this physical life, when the Light penetrates the darkness. I will ask you directly... Are you planing to complete suicide? PLEASE?? DON'T do it! There is the way to be happy in this life.

@SoonHei Again, I am very sorry for your loss. What you are sharing is not the direct communication, it is an edited after the fact, more than once, communication. When I received your message, I messaged Leo asking if it is possible to see the editing history, to try to make some sense of this. Like you, I could only speculate as to his ‘why’, because whatever that why might have been, it was of his private thoughts. I do not agree that he trusted in my guidance. If suicide was the ‘lessor of two evils’, I have always suggested expression, talking with someone, taking advantage of all resources available, letting go vs carrying the weight. If his actions were of the thinking of ‘conscious death’, I have commented multiple times offering clarity on this misunderstanding. Making a dreamboard is indicative of what I suggest, and is about living and creating consciously. I am not per se an advocate of even the “ego death” lingo. Also, in terms of trusting my guidance, he never reached out to talk as in have a session. I wish he would have, perhaps he would have opened up if he was carrying a weight, or perhaps found clarity on the “conscious death” philosophy. Again I am speculating here. This medium of communication is very limiting. I am on the road in the country presently and reception is hit or miss. If however you are interested in chatting on Skype in the future I welcome that.

I don't know who you're talking about, but Scholar go a point. Even though, ultimately the decision is not in our hands, and Soonhei may have done it even if Leo and the forum were more careful and upfront about this (physically harming yourself is not necessary at all), We have all our own share of responsibility to influence a bit more people to do that. It's not all an individual choice or a collective one, it's both. So I have to admit, I kinda feel bad right now, because I'm probably the one who used this analogy the most, on top of not directly experiencing it myself. I'm not guilting myself, but I still kind of feel bad, cause in retrospect, how many people I have influenced to do just what Soonhei did ? Probably a lot. To the point of actually committing suicide ? Most likely not. But still, there is an effect that I can't deny, I can't just tell myself that whatever I write has no influence, it does, way more than I can think of. And we all do.

I believe there is actually a link. I had attempted a suicide long time ago, because I was actually fine with the idea of moving on. I was not afraid of death, took the rat poison and laid there, only for my mother to come in and find out what happened, then took me to the hospital... Leos stuff are very radical and can be misunderstood and misused. I wouldn't blame him, because he can't control how others would perceive an insight that he's had, which might very well be true.

I do think that your criticism of Leo would help him deconstruct the mind of anyone more effectively, but I disagree that his current technique leads to any amount of increased rate of suicide. It clearly reaches more people all at once, but I don't see the link between that and suicide.

@Scholar If a person is whole, and coming from a place of wholeness - Suicide will not be the answer nor will rape nor will replacing hair without anesthesia. With all due respect, I do believe SoonHei was dealing with mental illness in some form. One of the most valuable supports I have is a therapist and I highly recommend everyone connect in person to someone who can display wholeness.

So you think whether or not people choose suicide is a matter of how the information is presented instead of it being presented? In your previous message you said "Don't tell this anyone".

@Leo Gura In your video ('Dangers of Spiritual Work') you have talked about that if someone will go All the way with spirituality then at the end he will have to surrender his entire life. This sounds like suicide. Also i don't think someone who commits suicide , regrets it.

This won't work. You can't just tell someone "Suicide and self harm is wrong! But also, morality is illusiory, everything including rape and torture is Love and Perfection. And by the way you can't die because you are God!". You give this knowledge to a child, he will cut himself with it. This is inevitable. This is serious stuff here, you can't just market it to the masses and expect everything to go well. The disclaimers are nothing but PR games. There is a reason why spiritual traditions that were successful did not spout "radical truth" to everyone on the street, telling them "You are God, I am God, it's all a dream!". If Buddhism did this it wouldn't exist today. Secondly, these traditions all firmly establish and importance in morality. There is a reason for this, it's not just "stage blue absolutism". None of the stuff Leo is teaching has been tested for more than a decade, nor do we even truly know the results. We have a confirmation bias of people just praising him. You have no idea how many people already killed themselves because of this. But better pretend like it's not your responsibility. I'm sure with an attitude like that, these teachings will stand the test of time.

Or he just got tired of material reality ? Don't understand why people are so dogmatic with suicide. He maybe was happy and have achieved enough emotional freedom and non-attachment. We will never know . Pd: of course I'm not doing apology of suicide. I'm just we don't was happening through his mind