Search the Community

Here are some points worth exploring 1) Wim hof breathing sets followed by push-ups provide energy burst right in the moment. The brain/body fog and clutter seems to go away. 2) I think I first heard this from Tony Robbins. ENERGY BEGETS ENERGY. Stay physically active all throughout the day. Don't sit at one place more than 30 minutes straight (expect for contemplation work). Make 5-10 minutes of mini exercise routines. Do that 2-3 times a day. It can keep you energetically active all throughout the day. 3) You are going through a wonderful transformation in your life from inside out. So be patient. The body-mind mechanism is adjusting with the new, healthy inputs you are consciously taking. 4) Cut all unnecessary thought. The more mindful I get, the more I realize how much horseshit I fantasize throughout the day thus deplete energy and go in a downward energy spiral.

The relationship is to be used skillfully (assuming it is a correct relationship to begin with for such purposes as self-refinement). I cannot see how one can evolve but through relationships. Realizing the inability to detach is indicative of having something to work with!! Woohoo!! Work with just that. Absolutely. The most powerfully transformative relationships I have had have not only celibate, but were virtually wordless and spanned thousands of days apiece. No, they were not at all anonymous, they were extremely intense, and not at all private affairs. Amazing, wondrous transformation by virtue of such relationships.

@How to be wise He is not only wrong, misleading and even discouraging people in a sense by saying 99% of people die during enlightenment, but he also claims that in his own ashram he pegs people down (people who are kriya yogis, according to him) when they are about to reach enlightenment so that they don't die. And this is what started my whole criticism about him in the last few months.. In the process of doing that, I found many other things, which is a long story... Don't worry, if anybody dies at the time of enlightenment, it is a rare exception.. It is not even 1%... definitely not 99% Make sure you read the following word by word because if you are Sadhguru's follower, you will feel a strong tendency to defend him, you may lose awareness for a moment, assume what is written below without fully reading it and may want to refute what I am saying without fully understanding it. The best thing for me to do here is to post an answer that I wrote in Quora. The question which was asked was "How many enlightened persons has Isha Foundation produced through its methods? " Good question! I had attended programs in Isha, attended Sadhguru’s satsangs a few times and I lived in Coimbatore for two years… I know Sadhguru since 2004 and I would like to answer this question. Let me first tell you something that Sadhguru says, which is very important for you to know: It is also written in cover of the book ‘Enlightenment - An inside story’ And in the same book he also says the following: So what do you get from this? In spite of the practitioners of Isha yoga being kriya yogis, they will still leave the body (die) when they get enlightened. But Sadhguru will not let them die but peg them down so that they don’t reach enlightenment. Or he will let it happen only when they reach a certain age. But for some reason, Sadhguru was not able to do this for Viji, his wife.(He wasn’t able to peg her down and she left her body before the consecration of Dhyanalinga). This is ridiculous!.Read this for further info: https://ksmphanindra.wordpress.com/2017/11/02/the-controversial-death-of-sadhgurus-wife-vijji/ But I know how Sadhguru got such an idea about enlightenment. He got it from Osho: In the above excerpt, Osho has stated that most of the people die during the moment of enlightenment and only very rarely few people survive. Sadhguru simple repeated Osho as he always does. Please read this answer if you need a solid evidence for the fact that he repeats Osho most of the time: Sadhguru and Osho But Osho is known for his contradictions. What Sadhguru didn’t realize is that he stated the exact opposite which is published in a different book: Osho simply confuses people so that people don’t believe in anything.I have elaborated why he contradicts himself many times: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Osho-give-contradictory-statements-at-different-times/answer/Shanmugam-P-12 But what Sadhguru says is not true at all. Let me explain a few things first. I myself went through a transformation in 2014, but I don’t call it enlightenment. I have a reason for it. When I use the word ‘enlightenment’, it only points to a concept you have about enlightenment in your mind. But what happened to me blew my mind and it was nowhere related to whatever I thought about enlightenment. The words like ecstasy, bliss or peace are not the right words to describe the reality that I am living in right now. Thats why Lao Tzu said ‘The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao’.. The more complicated theories are used to describe the absolute reality, the less they sound like the experience of it. My seeking completely ended in 2014. There was nothing to seek anything any longer. At that point, I could no longer doubt ‘Am I enlightened’ but I doubted ‘Is this enlightenment?’.. There is a difference between these two questions.. The first question ‘Am I enlightened’implies that there is still a personal limited self which is asking this question. But whatever happened to me completely broke the mental boundaries between ‘me’ and the ‘world’… There was no one to get enlightenment in the first place. But I still couldn’t stop wondering ‘Is this enlightenment’. This second question is related to the concept of enlightenment that I had all along. It didn’t fit with that concept at all. So many things happened after that and I couldn’t understand why. Usually I was very happy and energetic at work and I received some compliments from my colleagues like ‘You are the happiest man in the world’, ‘You are the only one here who is working joyfully’, ‘You are the only one who comes to work happily and goes home happily’… But I also went through some occasional mental pain and I was also faced with some old patterns of thoughts from time to time. In fact, at one point, there was an extreme mental anguish which lasted for a couple of months. But none of them touched my inner core and none of them left a trace in my psyche. I couldn’t explain these moments of occasional mental pain because neither Osho nor Sadhguru explained anything about what happens at this stage. And I never labelled my way of functioning as ‘enlightenment’ because it is just a word and it didn’t mean anything to me. After 2014 , the next three years passed like a cakewalk, as if nothing happened. Except for those occasional painful moments, my life was certainly a blessing. But I didn’t think anything about spirituality those days.. The extreme mental anguish that I talked about which lasted for a couple of months actually happened during September 2016. Only at that point, I actually started thinking what exactly happened and where I can find some explanation for it. I studied the scriptures that I never studied before. It was fun because nothing was serious in my life after the transformation. It was as if I had taken a permanent vacation from life. When I studied Advaita Vedanta, I could relate with it because it described what was happening to me more than any other tradition could describe. I read Adhi Shankara’s Bhasyas and I came across the following: Even though I didn’t label myself enlightened (I couldn’t label myself anything), the above was the only thing that could explain what was happening during those occasional periods of mental pain. When I went through many scriptures in Vedantic and Buddhist traditions, I could realize one thing: Many things about enlightenment has been generalized for all people based on their observations on a very few human beings.

What if i told you that right now a portion of the population, who are incarnations of extraterestial beings are simultaneously going trough a massive awakening process, and once thats done, they will assist the awakening of the rest of humanity in whats said to be the first, second and third wave of ascension which wll include massive changes in the collective and total transformation of earth. What a bunch of new age BS gosh, who’d believe that. Bunch of nutjobs I gotta tell ya.

@RawJudah I was recently watching a video I rented from the library by Eckhart Tolle where he was talking about his enlightenment experience. I also read in his book "The New Earth, Awakening your True Life Purpose," that he had depression after his first awakening experience for a few years and was on the brink of suicide. This book has really been helping with the awakening process as I'm learning to differentiate between the ego and my true self, awareness. Transcendental Meditation or aka TM mediation says enlightenment is a natural, normal thing. From what I read in Eckhart Tolle's books he was realizing some things logically in his mind about emotions and thoughts as he interacted with people. He was understanding what the ego was and that it wasn't who he really was. Enlightenment isn't one experience and everything is done...it's a process, a transition. And once it is experienced it is hard to go back to everyday life knowing the truth. The book is worth reading and is said to help the transition process. A few weeks ago I had a brush with Consciousness, the infinite, nothingness. It was great. The monkey mind shut off for three hours and was just directly experiencing everything. There was wholeness, completeness, bliss, peace. ... Yet nothing can compare to this experience... No outer experience or life purpose could ever fulfill that need. It's all inner. This awakening experience was random but I've also recently changed my diet, been practicing TM meditation, and have been using reiki and the law of attraction to manifest this transformation faster. @egoeimai

@Leo Gura Yea, I thought the same. And it is my impression from his videos that Shunyamurti is also a dedicated reader and has done serious study in this field. Maybe a case of "Don't look for what they say. Look for what they do" I raised the same objection to the transmission of energy thing. I asked if it is not only a temporary glimpse like a psychedelic trip. This is what he answered: "Your speculation is incorrect. Working with a liberated sage is precisely not like taking an entheogen, for many reasons, and can indeed result in permanent liberation. Of course the seeker must be ripe and ready, courageous and determined, truthful and open-hearted. An authentic relationship with the teacher must be formed. It is this that makes the difference. Not only can the guide help you peel away all the ego defenses, while in the ordinary waking state, but the sage can enable you to hold the vibrational frequency of Self realization for long enough to burn away the old tendencies, fantasies, and unconscious ego structures and agencies. The guru can implant within your heart a power that, even if it does not activate immediately, will set subtle processes of transformation in motion. Regarding your assertion that it is difficult to find such a sage, I would reply that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Also, where there is a will, there is a way. Even if it involves a pilgrimage to another place, if it is a high enough priority, it will happen. Your spiritual destiny is in your own hands. Namaste, Shunyamurti" The devil's advocate would point out that he is saying this so that more people come to his Ashram But I never met a "sage", so I don't know what impact it can have.

It makes me happy that you mentioned the potential you feel for yourself in your first post. For someone experiencing a lot of darkness, you seem have a lot of brightness to give, as is evident by your response to shin. I know it can be painful to think that there is no cure and no way out. Strangely, sometimes it is less painful to choose to believe that there no cure, rather than to believe that happiness and well-being are possible. Why is this? Is it because if we really opened ourselves to the potential of happiness that we're afraid that we'd discover that it's not true and that we are actually powerless? It is an unfortunate and self fulfilling paradox that we choose the illusion/belief of powerlessness because it feels safer than really looking to see if we have power at all. Maybe there will be profound and radical catalyst for your transformation, or maybe there will be a more gentle opening into well-being that starts to happen in your life over time. Either way I believe it can happen if you are even just 1% open to the possibility. It's not always about herculean efforts or radical answers. If on some days you can sit and open it up to 2%, that's even more powerful. Life will fan that ember for you.

Greetings, This is my first post on the forum and I want to make it count. I have been on the spiritual path for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a little kid I felt a calling towards the mystical. But there is something wrong with me… I noticed I was different when my mom signed me up for kindergarten for the first time. As her cab left for work I just couldn’t handle it. Nothing really happened on the outside but on the inside I was falling apart and I wasn’t sure why. I couldn’t speak to anyone at the kindergarten and I just cried myself to sleep every day. This happened every day until eventually my mom realized I wasn’t doing so well there and she removed me from kindergarten... The painful me-story I come from a dysfunctional and a chaotic family – My parents were divorced before I was born. Although I saw some screaming and fighting it definitely was not the worst story out there. I wasn’t abused or anything like that, however I realized that adults didn’t know what they were doing either and this confused me a lot and made me somewhat unstable. I didn’t see my father a lot - just a couple of times and then he died somewhere in Asia from unknown causes. My mother married another guy who was a decent fellow and I was brought up in that family. He died too (in front of me). For a while I became somewhat stable. I didn’t have too much problems in primary school but I reverted to deep depression in late high school again. The kind of depression where you wake up in the morning and just start crying after realizing you are still alive. I started doing drugs. Didn’t have friends so I didn’t have access to popular drugs but I did stuff which an unscrupulous pharmacist was willing to sell me. I was taking recreational drugs by myself in my room. I had my first panic attack during one of my first trips, thought I was dying. I called 911, but when the lady said “Hello” I hanged up. The thought of my mother finding out overwhelmed me. I thought I would take the risk and wait it out instead – if I die then so the fuck what? I didn’t die that day and it actually felt really good to disrespect death – I felt liberated. I felt like a god. I thought I could get away with anything, so I shifted from depressive to manic reckless behavior. Went to the gym, started taking steroids and all kinds of other substances. Quit after a few months since I ruined my digestion with a bizarre diet which my idiot trainer recommended. I did get huge stretch marks from all the water retention though. I went to depressed again and started taking mushrooms from time to time. I had a horrible trip which lead to a brutal panic attack and this time it was so bad that I couldn’t contain my fear and went to the ER. They kept me in the hospital for three days and my mom found out I was doing drugs, steroids and all that. Since that day I have been becoming more and more neurotic. Nowadays I have terrible social skills. I have never had sex. I have never had a real relationship. I am so neurotic that I have turned away girls who themselves offered to date me and who I wanted to date as well. I’ve had many offers from girls but I always turn them down, because deep down I feel that I am not good enough. I feel that because I haven’t had any sexual experience I will disappoint them and I don’t want to experience the shame from this situation. I know that because I have never kissed a girl in my life I don’t know how to kiss so I will disappoint. I feel that I am not ready to be in a relationship. I feel like I’m a product that’s not ready for market. We are talking pathological levels of insecurity here. I am sometimes afraid to say “Hi” to people - when they are about to look at me, I avert my gaze to avoid eye contact. I am so afraid of rejection that I sabotage my whole social life. That’s why I have spent most of my life in my room, in the dark, alone. I talk to myself because I have no one else to talk to. I have wondered whether I am autistic or something like that. I am so neurotic that my brain likes to generate horror thoughts all the time. Sometimes when I walk on the street and see an open hole I instantly imagine how I didn’t notice it and I stepped in and my foot broke in the worst possible way. When someone calls on the phone my initial reaction is to assume that they are about to tell me that someone has gone crazy or has died. I always assume the worst – I am not doing it on purpose it’s just the result of years of pain, suffering, loneliness and negativity. It’s probably programmed in my subconscious. But wait there’s more... At some point the health problems begun. All kinds of weird stuff – allergies, asthma, digestive issues, unexplained bruising and scratches on skin, insomnia, vertigo, headaches, fatigue. I read every wikipedia article about every symptom, I read hundreds of health and diet books, I’ve tried hundreds of supplements, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on blood tests. I am practically an expert on health and nutrition at this point, only I am not, because all of those diets (paleo, gaps, fodmap, autoimmune paleo etc.) and supplements, and gluten/sugar avoidance and all kinds of modifications which seem to solve other people’s health issues and result in success-transformation stories have done nothing or very little for me. I’ve been to so many doctors – some of them have plain stated they have no idea what’s wrong with me. When I had my health meltdown everyone was either telling me that I am fine or that I need psychiatric help (didn’t know that skin bruising or copper deficiency or abnormal TSH levels were treated by psychiatrists) or that there’s something wrong but they are not sure what. I am starting to think that my health problems are caused by something else entirely. Maybe my deep negativity is destroying my body. Maybe there’s bad feng shui in my room. Maybe my sexlessness is ruining my energies. Maybe holding my sperm when I ejaculate is actually harmful (I read that in a Mantak Chia book, but the author later said that this was actually bad advice, I don’t know why I am still doing that). Maybe it’s just fucking karma and I have to accept my nightmare and wait it out... Let me just say that maintaining my sanity is becoming harder every day. I’ve considered suicide many times. I know it would destroy my mother and I just can’t do that to her. Who wants to play “am I tired of this shit”. My spiritual journey My deep suffering forced me to seek relief in spirituality. I have never had a teacher or a guru, but I did found a person on a forum who mentored me for a while and taught me to let go of beliefs and to seek free thinking and authenticity. I also read some Jed McKenna, some Chogyam Trungpa, some Osho, some Sam Harris, some U.G. Krishnamurti (the most depressing shit ever), some Buddha, some Lao Tzu, some Eckhart Tolle. Listened to thousands of hours of video from spiritual masters. I even went to India for a “radical” satsang. Don’t say I am not committed. I am committed AF. After a while this shedding of beliefs started to suffocate me because I realized that everything is a belief and everything can be questioned. I realized that every concept is just someone’s opinion or perception. If you think about it even the notion of truth is questionable. People say that truth is just the way things are, but that’s based on the belief that logic is meaningful. Maybe there is no “the way things are” - it doesn’t make sense, but then it doesn’t have to make sense, just because I want it to make sense. You know I hear all these teachers making big claims such as “consciousness is real and eternal”, “there is no death”, “there is no self”, “there is a self”, “jesus was enlightened”, “buddha was enlightened”, “tao is union of the opposites”, “tao is not the union of opposites” - doesn’t it seem to you that all of this is BS? I mean how do you really confirm that your consciousness is real and eternal? What if all of this is just some simulation and these insights are worthless or even worse - force-fed as a part of an experiment (remember the Matrix)? What if I am just a brain in a vat? What if existence collapses after a second and we get stuck in blackness for eternity? I get it – most or all of these scenarios are just brain generated fiction. The intellect desperately tries to fill the void of uncertainty with some story, but sooner or later I will have to let go of the idea of certainty as well. So what’s left? More beliefs? More neurosis? Is the goal simply to be peaceful regardless of circumstances (Eckhart Tolle)? Sounds good but what if I become a schizophrenic and lose control over my peace too? Start hearing voices that tell me to eat brains? My uncle just became a schizophrenic a few days ago and he’s already tried to commit suicide. I’ve known and loved this person for decades and suddenly he’s all fucked up talking about conspiracies against our family reputation. How do you make sense of this, how do you accept and integrate this? What the fuck is going on? Anyway... Don’t get me wrong. I’ve learned a lot too. I am super stubborn and I tend to play the victim card a bit too often, but I am actually quite open-minded as well. I don’t claim wrong or right, although I prefer ease over dis-ease. I am becoming too lazy to suffer. I am still afraid of losing my mind, but there is some peace in not taking myself too seriously. Definitely not heaven, more like giving up, but still better than crying myself to sleep (insomnia). I want peace. I want clarity. I want effortless existence. I want to live in the mountains and play my dizi flute. That’s pretty much it. Not sure what to do. Nothing at all to hold on to. I would love to hear back from you. Don’t need consolation, need a way out. All of your advice is welcome and appreciated.

Hey guys. Hope you're all good. After my awakening and permanent self-realization in May, 2017 my spiritual interest died down a lot. My participation on this forum went down, my spiritual practices came to an end and my whole journey imploded. This happened because I found the answers and tranquillity I looked for when I started. The answer that awakening and permanent self-realization gives you is the vanishing of the question you posed in the beginning of your journey. Your whole conceptual world comes to an end (mostly) and you live, think and talk mostly spontaneously and not pre-mediated. That's quite nice. In the beginning of this new phase I had to adjust my entire life to this situation, so I needed quite a bit of time for that. A lot of new experiences and perspectives opened up to me and I took my time to investigate those. Right now it's the end of 2017 and I am still stable in non-dual awareness and mostly not contracted in my body. I also start to deepen my self-realization and push it towards "God Awareness" to go on with my journey. So I figure it's time to let you in on the techniques I researched and developed shortly before I woke up and that helped me to wake up permanently. +++ Enter Azrael's Awakening Anchor #1 | How To Solve Emotional Suffering +++ I'm a big proponent of meditation. It's a great practice and the basis of everything we do. If you cannot sit with yourself and enjoy it, how can you ever understand your self? However, as we meditate and go on with our journey it gets clear that regular meditation is too slow and mild of a practice to give us the transformation that we want. That's why we have to develop accelerators on top of this basis. The process I'll describe in a second is such a accelerator. It was developed by myself in January - February of 2017 and is based on a few other practices I know. It's main purpose is to solve emotional suffering and contraction of energy in your body. One of the big reasons you are not enlightened and always go back to sleep after a temporary awakening is that your body and mind are full of contractions that keep your ego in place. It is the energetic anchor in the nervous system that makes your ego, persona and body feel quite real and connected. It also makes your suffering feel quite real. The method was tested on myself, @Huz and a friend of mine. I used it maybe 5-10 times in a span of 3 weeks to get rid of a lot of emotional suffering and contraction in my body. I did it with @Huz and he did it on himself as well and it died down most of his social anxiety almost instantly. My other friend cured most of his anger and had weeks of temporary awakening experiences after we did the technique once. In my opinion the technique works best when you do it on someone else. The shift that happens seems to be deeper and its good to have someone to lead the process. However, it is possible to do it on yourself and still have a lot of changes happening. I am thinking right now to give away 3 free skype sessions for you guys to do this process - led by me. If you are interested, let me know in the comments. Also, I'm thinking to make a product out of this and help people with this process over a couple of weeks + consultation (also via a series of skype sessions). So if you'd be interested in that, let me know as well. +++ The Technique: An Interview With Your Inner Children +++ The process is rooted in the observation that all of the egoic and unintegrated roles that your ego plays arise from an contraction of your basic emotions fear / sadness anger / rage happiness / inspiration love Every role that you play takes the raw energy of a subset of these emotions, contracts them in your body / mind and lets a thought story arise out of this contraction to express the energy. The problem is that these roles -> thought stories -> contracted emotions -> raw contraction of energy are anchored in your body / mind (aka nervous system) and get triggered all throughout your day. Because you have a lot these contracted roles and one role can trigger another role, you live in the illusion of a conceptual world of suffering. if you were to experience a subset of these 4 basic emotions in their uncontracted normal form, you wouldn't suffer. You would only have an intense, emotional experience. That's why it sometimes feels good to be in anger / rage or to melt in fear / sadness. Although other times, it seems like it destroys you (-> contraction). Based on this conceptualized observation, we need to find a way to unravel these contractions to let them out of your system. One very direct way to do this is to give a subconscious, uncontrolled emotion a conscious voice to express its situation and to understand its position. +++ The Technique's Technicalities +++ The actual technique works in the following way (if you do it on yourself). Sit down comfortably on a chair / cushion. Repeat the following steps for every basic emotion {fear / sadness, anger / rage, happiness / inspiration, love} Close your eyes and visualize a moment in your life in which you experienced the current emotion very strongly. Let your whole body sink into the emotion. Let it arise where it typically arises in your body. Think the thoughts it triggers when it comes up. In other words: Let the damn thing come on. Interview the emotion. That means ask the emotion a question and then answer the question from the standpoint of the emotion. Your questions should aim to "get to know" the emotion, its purpose, goal, its relationships with people, other emotions, yourself and the work that it does for you. Find a way with the current emotion to work better together with it in the future. That means work out a solution so that it can flow freely and you can live with it uncontracted and free. Open your eyes, stretch, think about what the emotion said and how you can live with that and go on with the next one. When you start working with this technique you will have to "play" the emotion's role. That means that you ask a question and you have to answer it from the perspective of the emotion. After doing this for 2-3 minutes, the emotion will come on so strongly that it'll take over and it will feel very real. I had numerous psychedelic-like experiences doing this technique. You might also experience big shifts in consciousness / awareness + a big opening of your body. +++ An Interviewer's Template For Each Emotion +++ To make the process even simpler, I'll share with you a template that I developed over time that works quite well. Use this in this order for every emotion you interview and add follow-up / deepening questions for your own usecase: Question: Who are you? Possible Answer: I am fear. Question: How do you feel? Possible Answer: I feel quite ... Question: Where are you located in my body when you arise? Possible Answer: I typically arise in your ... Question: How and when do you arise? Possible Answer: I come up when ... Question: When was the first time you can remember that you came up? Possible Answer: When you were ... years old, I came up while you were ... Question: What is your job and main goal? Possible Answer: My job is to protect you from ... Question: Do you sometimes work together with other emotions? If yes, with which and how? Possible Answer: Yeah, I sometimes work together with ... Question: Do you have enemies? If so, which ones and why? Possible Answer: Yeah, I hate ... [...] Question: What could we do to live more integrated together in the future? Possible Answer: You'd have to ... I hope you get the idea. Your main goal here is to fully understand and characterize every basic emotion and through that integrate it. It's very important when you do the interview, that you speak as "I the interviewer" and "I the emotion" so that you fully identify with your current position. It'll be strange at first, an then it'll be awesome and deep. Trust me. +++ Further Notes +++ So that's the basic technique. When you do it with someone else over a series of times there are more elements to it. But this is the main bullet that you need to do it with yourself. if you do it formally as I described it, close your eyes throughout the interview of each emotion an then open your eyes at the end of each interview and contemplate what just happened and what to with it. Then get out of your current state (as good as it might feel) and hop on to the next emotion. Explore how they work together, where they come from, how they contract and how they are triggered. Get the most accurate characterisation of each emotion on the intellectual, emotional and energetic level that you can get. Especially the first few times you do it, get deep and take your time. You'll notice a big release of tension in each sitting and after it which will be permanent. When you notice throughout the day that you feel contracted, you can also make a mini-interview and just ask yourself "Fear, are you that? Rage is it you? ..." and ask what is happening and why it is happening. That'll in most cases end your contraction pretty fast and bring you an even deeper understanding of your emotions. -- Try it! Let me know how it works for you and ask any questions that you have. Are you interested in a one-on-one skype session with me leading this? Maybe I'll throw 3 free sessions out there, if you guys are interested and it works for you. Are you interested in me making a product out of this, where we'd have multiple skype sessions with consultations + this technique over a period of time to integrate your emotions completely? Let me know. I will think about that. Anyway, I'm looking forward to make more of these Azrael's Awakening Anchors to share what helped me to wake up. Peace out and be good to yourself. Cheers, Az

Just gave a listen to the last Sam Harris podcast: https://www.samharris.org/podcast/item/111-the-science-of-meditation In it they explain that meditation is not really a substitute for traditional medicine to treat depression, and that it's for awakening, not to make you a happy person. This is similar to Peter Ralston's books which I read this summer but will have to re read, because the content was so dense. Transformation isn't enlightenment. Before I double down here and keep up my practice, I want to know what you guys think and why you are here. Are you here to get over some emotional problem, or do you think enlightenment will help with that.

Jordan Peterson is great, I highly recommend him too. Also maps of meaning course. I think the problem is that everything is metaphorical. Modern western rational, so to speak, understanding of the world is sipping into religion too and destroying it. Some priests try to explain Bible stories in modern scientific terms, trying to find contradictions and errors in science as a prove that religious stories are literally correct in modern understanding of the world. But that modern understanding with metaphors such as mater, energy, gravity, fields, space, time are a bunch of stories themselves and often different branches of physics have different somewhat contradicting stories. Scientific stories are deadly powerful when interacting with the world if you know what story to use when, Euclid geometry, classical mechanics or thermodynamics. Similarly religious stories can be very powerful to live a better life, but you have to know how to apply them. It is not just word games, if a person sincerely tries to live by religious stories, then his world changes, and changes can be so great that any rational arguments, mathematical scribblings and carbon dating of the earth will mean nothing to convince a person who experienced such life transformation.

What do we think about the endless futility of trying to be happy? As in, I will drift into hell if I neglect meditation, I will drift into hell if I don't banish spaghetti from my life, I will drift into hell if I don't aim some mantra at my root chakra, and most of all, I will drift into hell if I fail to surrender? Much of the wisdom seems to point to this thing of dropping the struggle paradigm, but I find myself struggling to drop the struggle. As I try to really, truly let go, I find that I am getting closer and closer to running out of money, to having no friends, no lovers, no purpose, no basic needs met, no clarity, and stuck between this clashing duality that says on the one hand, "oh my god dude. Human needs do exist. You do need a job you don't hate to be happy. You do need to be around positive people. You're going to have to leave town, because Los Angeles is the capital of western misery. There is no way to be happy here. And you're going to have to quadruple down on meditation. Take your power back, don't be passive, take control as best you can, create the life you want." And on the other, "oh look dude. You are absolutely spending your life running away from scarcity, and there's no doubt whatsoever about what you want: to surrender to God. To be completely, profoundly passive, to fully die, to completely abandon happiness. But, unfortunately, you seem blocked from this experience." Even as I write this, it flies in the face of giving up on self help, counselling, advice, needing to get life right. I'm feeling quite convinced these days that anybody trying to heal depression is reinforcing it, that as long as you are trying to fix yourself, you cannot possibly get there.

Hello beautiful self-actualizers. Welcome to my journal of scary self-transformation! Firstly I'm very grateful to be apart of this community as over the past year Leo, Nahm, Ajasatya, Gabriel, Pluto and AleksM have kicked me up the butt, and inspired me to walk the path of enlightenment. How I arrived here I started meditating in October 2016 and found Actualized.org a month later to, of course, find the 'best' technique for meditation. I was driven deeply to meditate largely by remembering a question I used to asked my Mum when I was around 5. It was, "Doesn't this all just feel like a dream?", and it struck me, I felt like I was in a dream still! Being lost in my monkey mind and incessantly identified with my high expectations to be the top student in high school I finally realized that the only direction I was heading was to Satan's tombstone, and to put the icing on the cake, I felt tangibly unconscious. This ignited a fire in my heart to stop the judgement once and for all and to start waking up to reality by first, meditating and second, love. It's so funny looking back at those days because I couldn't keep my body still for even a minute without feeling like a bomb of energy was going to explode out of my skin. How was it so hard? Well, I was heavily programmed by society to want instant gratification which I sought through Video games, Phone games, and in between those breaks, constant internet browsing of the latest technology and porn (Ohhh that hurts); this made me never want to sit still. Now after 8 months of solid daily meditation for an hour these hard addictions have auto corrected which is a miracle in itself. The Crux of this journal What is the true meaning of love? It's such a simple word, yet it scares the ego deliciously. All I know is that love is found in the NOW if only I could see it! As such my purpose in this journal is to explore love until it destroys me. Everyday I commit to affirming 24/7 "I am the light. The light I am" and "I love you" and "I am grateful for...". Everyday from today I commit to meditating 2 hours a day to connect with this world and everyday I commit to self-inquiring for 30 minutes a day and I will defiantly increase this to an hour in 5 minute increments per month if it feels organic. It really feels like my calling in life to do this as if someone wants me to go through this journey. Matt Kahn has been the inspiration to love every human being and every single object like no soul has ever dared to before and if love is really the only answer, WE SHALL FIND OUT. In Short This will be a place where I share all of my juicy insights from my daily rituals centered around love and my progress finding Life Purpose (I'm in the middle of the course) to ultimately live a passionate life, to wake up out of this dream and have lots of sex along the way! 30 day challenge to update this daily. I wish you all luck on your own journeys.

@snowleopard Yes it is great Probably not many people can really grasp the deep transformation that this poem points to. I will keep his book in mind I would be interested to know his background experiences with psychedelics.

Here's what I got Today, science tells us that the essence of nature is transformation. You and I are Dreamweaver's of the multiverse. Dreamweaver's. Wow! That sounds like inception

#25 How the Masculine Grows ~ David Deida The essential Masculine style of search is that of the warrior, the hero, or the visionary. The Masculine force is one-pointed, directional, and guided by a vision of freedom. Masculine energy cuts through any obstacles that are in its path. Nothing deters the Masculine from its goal of freedom. However, not every man uses his Masculine energy to search for freedom in the same way. The way a man searches for freedom depends on his particular needs, which typically change through his life in three stages. First-stage needs are about gaining something, like food, money, sex, power, or fame. A first-stage man tends to form a Dependence Relationship with his woman. Second-stage needs are about self-improvement, authenticity, being in touch with your inner wisdom, and creating a Garden of Eden on earth. A second-stage man is interested in forming a 50/50 Relationship with his woman. Third-stage needs are about letting go of self-definition, relaxing your endless search for completion, feeling through the tension of this present moment, and surrendering your limits on openness, as each moment arises and dissolves in love. A third-stage man enjoys a relationship with his woman based on the practice of Intimate Communion. The Masculine force looks different depending on which type of need is most important to a man. For instance, a first-stage man is searching for freedom by trying to get something. Since his search is an effort to gain something, he is offended when someone asserts that he doesn’t have something, whether brains, bucks, or babes. The first-stage man is an acquisitional man. He sees freedom as something to get. He is a car mechanic dreaming of his own garage. He is a predator on wall street. He is a doctor with a Mercedes and a mistress. He is a man whose goal is somewhere outside of his body, outside of this moment, and he is going to get it. First-stage victory involves acquiring the sacred object–the cash, the car, the country–that is out there to be had. The first-stage man is a man of acquisition, of gain, and of enlarged self-image. A second-stage man looks quite different from a first-stage man. The second-stage man is not out to conquer his enemies; he is out to conquer his own limitations. He is not looking to gain more of something; he is looking to improve who he is. He doesn’t want more, he wants better. He seeks freedom by transforming himself and his world, not by overpowering and acquiring things and others. The second-stage man battles his own demons and emerges victoriously whole, balanced, a hero of self-integration. If he is afraid of heights, he learns to sky-dive. If he is shy of intimacy, he uses therapy to help him grow beyond blocks he developed in childhood. He seeks to transform his self-understanding through the study of philosophy or esoteric spirituality. He wants to transform the outer world from a battleground into a Garden of Eden. Whereas the first-stage man tries to become a hero of acquisition, the second-stage man tries to be a hero of transformation. The first-stage hero stands victorious atop his mound of wealth, slain enemies, and respectful subordinates. The second-stage hero stands victorious atop his mound of self-control, internal mastery, and impeccable action. He has won–he is completely his own master, authentic and whole, fully responsible for his own happiness. He is free to go where he wants, when he wants. He is free to love who he wants, perhaps a woman or two, or maybe just himself. The second-stage man is a free spirit, a Renaissance man of the new age, a man of inner evolution and outer adventure–an adventure not of gaining personal wealth, but of creating a more utopian way of life. The second-stage man is also singularly deluded. At least the first-stage man is up front with his wants: He wants big bucks and big breasts. The second-stage man often hides his own emptiness, and his own needs, even from himself. He has practiced meditation for ten years, traveled all over Asia and India, is a certified Aikido master and psychotherapist, and, essentially, nothing fundamental has changed. He still feels unfinished. Things are a little easier than they used to be, but still, he is not free. He is still locked in his own fears. He is still bound by the fear of death, the fear of separation, the fear of failure. Furthermore, he is older now, and he doesn’t have the energy or determination he once had. He has created a comfortable place for himself in the world, and although he is embarrassed to admit it, he doesn’t want to risk losing too much. But he has no choice. His evolving Masculine energy moves him to take a good look at his life and face the consequences of truth. Suddenly, the second-stage man opens his eyes and sees his life as he has settled for it. He feels his own dullness, his own fear, his own mediocrity, and he begins to burn inside. His precious self, which he has worked so hard to master, feels like a clench. His life which once seemed so easy now seems like a tedious burden. His relationships and career weight him with false obligations. He is afraid to let go of it all, but the constant knot in his gut is becoming too much to bear. It is a helpless situation. He is absolutely unsatisfied. The breakdown of hope and the recognition of futility has brought him to the edge, and he has no real choice: He releases into the abyss. He succumbs to a crisis. His self-sufficiency and self-worth fall to zero. If he stays in place without adding consolation to his suffering, if he remains an open-hearted warrior even at zero, then a miracle will manifest. Because he knows he can depend on nothing, he has freed himself from all false support. Because he has outgrown the first-stage need to depend on something outside of himself, as well as the second-stage need to depend on something inside of himself, he is vulnerable to grace. His reduction to nothing has rendered him helpless, but not without help. Without looking, without trying, a spontaneous force of life begins to become obvious. It is the same mysterious force which beats his heart, moves his thoughts, and illuminates his dreams at night. Since he has felt the futility of letting his life be dictated by others as well as by his own endless thoughts, he is open to being lived by another force, the force of truth, the force which has always lived him and is living him now. Whatever he may call this force, it is the force of existence itself, the direct and unmediated flow and feeling of being. It is who he is, even when his friends and concepts fail him. It is the one who witnesses his dreams at night and his thoughts and actions during the day. It is the force of being or consciousness that is constant throughout all of his experiences. It is who he is, always, but it controls nothing. In the crises of futility, he realizes that his inside world and his outside world are obviously beyond his control, and that death is inevitable. So he does the only thing he can do. He surrenders, sacrificing all experiences, inner and outer, into the one force that creates, sustains, and dissolves all of his experiences. The third-stage man is rested in the fullness of this force. He is lived by this force, as this force. Thus, his actions are spontaneous truth. His home is the fullness of love or non-separation. When the third-stage man forgets his home, and temporarily wanders in search, he always wakes up to the same moment: this living moment, now, spontaneously arising, luminous as the objects within it, and conscious as the witness of itself. He realizes that this living moment is always appearing to itself. This moment is neither dependent on him nor independent of him, but arises, spontaneously and consciously, inclusive of him. His search is always dissolved in this intuition of non-separation, of pleasurable unity, of love. He stands as the free consciousness in which this moment arises. The fully mature third-stage man recognizes that his nature is freedom itself, always transcending, witnessing, and including that which arises

I have never experienced anything like seeing visions, seeing UFO's etc.. But not having any such abilities was never a barrier to my awakening. Nothing happened like that after my transformation either. But there was a period of about two months (it happened more than a year ago) when I was convinced that I had some kind of psychic ability. I would think about or talk about something and it would be in the news the next day or I would read about the exact same topic the next day. Such things happened for about a month and were very convincing. I didn't write about it in my book since my main focus was to appeal to people who are skeptical, the book is basically an attempt to bridge science and spirituality. But I have generally touched on the topic of extra-sensory perception in a chapter. I don't have any explanation for what happened during those two months. It could be a mere coincidence or something that is really psychic. Honestly, it was happening too often to call a coincidence. But I am careful in not to come up with my own imagined explanation for what happened. (People are usually tempted to add something imaginary to it, instead of seeing the way it happened). At the same time, I am completely open to the possibility that ESP could be real.

Great thumbnail of a clip in the movie (those are extraterrestrial light ships) and also a great animated movie, recommend it. The Laws of The Sun- Spiritual Movie Some of the teaching in this movie: :: Earth and ancient civilizations :: :: Multidimensionality:: :: Dark ages, Gold ages :: :: Golden Teachings :: :: Earth transformation :: Also some other animated movies: The Laws of Eternity - Mystical Movie The golden laws - Spiritual Anime

Dear all, I successfully published my first book 'The Truth About Spiritual Enlightenment: Bridging Science, Buddhism and Advaita Vedanta' in Amazon. It is available in both kindle and paperback versions. I am able to provide the kindle book for free for five days using KDP select. The kindle book will be available for free from 24th Nov, 2017 to 28th Nov, 2017. I invite the members of this forum to take advantage of this free promotion. Kindle version: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B078494FQB Paperback: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1973364549 Here is the description of the book: "Spiritual enlightenment is becoming a buzzword. Enlightenment is a popular niche for people who write or read about self-help, meditation, healing, psychology and more. But do you really understand what enlightenment is? Is it some kind of altered state of consciousness, a solution to get high without drugs, a way to live life in 24/7 bliss, a myth or a complete scam? Is there any scientific basis to enlightenment or spiritual awakenings? This book has the answer for these questions. This book attempts to bridge spiritual teachings of Vedanta and Buddhism with science. It gives you a practical and reasonable path to end your suffering and live a peaceful, satisfied and happy life. Above all, it will help you to find your own way and follow your own light. The book will also introduce you to some important concepts in psychology, which are related to spiritual awakening. The concepts and solution presented in this book are based on the author’s own experience. It also has a chapter that narrates author’s own spiritual journey which led to a complete spiritual transformation. The book also has a separate chapter which talks about scientific research done on spiritual enlightenment."

Habits that I have used, personally? Is that what you’re asking? I hope i don’t get complete off track here. I’m at a place of serious growth and transformation right now. I changed careers in June and thought my life and reality would change bc my circumstances did and I learned quickly otherwise. I was super frustrated and looking for answers when I stumbled upon leo, among others. Ok... just trying to give some background. Habits that I personally stick to include: an exercise regimen 5 days a week (I’ve lost 17 lbs and feel great) I meditate every day. I read one hour a day or more. I changed my diet, (nothing major, just eating real food and zero fast food) I stopped looking at porn (oddly enough this was the hardest thing of all) then I have a set of habits I incorporated at my work to increase productivity. That mostly includes incorporating routines and time blocking my tasks. Lastly, perhaps more to your point, when I need to relax, or take that mental break, I watch videos like a fiend. Almost to a fault, really. But I’m not necessarily just doing mental masturbation and I’m careful to make sure I don’t get in a trap. Like I said, I’m in a phase of transformation and growth right now and I use YouTube and audiobooks to learn. I dive in and try to pull nuggets of wisdom that I can use to change my mind and my life. I’m a drummer, so I play drums to relax too. That was probably way too long and tmi. But. If you’re a self actualizer, you don’t want to fall in a trap of incorporating habits that do not harmonize with your life purpose. That’s all I’m saying.

I don't want to be certain about anyone's enlightenment, including whatever hell that happened to me because the word 'enlightenment' doesn't really have a single definition. "The fact that Sadhguru's way of expressing does not resonate means nothing." - Actually, it resonated with me before I went through a transformation .. I didn't resonate with me after that. Because, I could see him in a totally different way after the transformation. This time there was nothing to lose. Let me repeat what I said in one of my posts: One thing that always makes me smile whenever someone objects to any criticism I have about him is this: The response would be exactly similar to how I myself would have responded a few years ago.. Read this first: https://www.quora.com/What-do-you-think-of-Sadhguru-Jaggi-Vasudev/answer/Shanmugam-P-12 You said 'Plus we don't know what happens in deepest levels of realization and understanding'... First, you don't know what is going to happen to you, what kind of mindset you have and what you will think about Sadhguru after 13 years.. I didn't know that either, 13 years before... And trust me, I would have said the same thing that you just said in your reply.. Anyway, I appreciate that you consider all the possibilities, as you said "There could be several reasons. One - He is in more deeper understanding than you. Two - yes you are right. Three - you are wrong about your " Enlightenment".. Some people dont even do that, they just cling to one possibility. Anyway, I know it is very hard to convince someone who thinks Sadhguru is speaking the truth... People couldn't convince me either, 5 years before...

Point taken. I had a similar experience with acne, years of treatment with a burning cream did nothing and my doctor insisted my poor diet and lack of exercise/fresh air had nothing to do with it. A few weeks ago I stopped taking my SSRIs and other meds against my doctor's recommendations. I wanted to stop supressing whatever depressed emotions I had buried away and clear out my subconscious. Since stopping them I've felt way better, more like myself. More neurotic and my emotions have a lot more variability to them but the ups feel incredible and when I'm down it's much easier to be with myself and cry out a ton of garbage that's been haunting me for years. I'm getting off topic here, but what does @Leo Gura recommend for the more powerful emotional healing techniques? I meditate and follow the self acceptance visualization daily. I'm also following a program called Transformation Mastery by RSD Julien which has helped me release emotions (mostly crying) at times but I've yet to have any breakthroughs or discover whatever my core wound/trauma/whatever is causing a scarcity paradigm is. Got any practical videos or techniques to look into? Thank ya!

If the title of the thread caught your attention then this discussion is for you

A Return to Love – My Story Continued This morning I was reading Gabby Bernstein’s book May Cause Miracles. Gabby defines a miracle as a moment in which we choose love instead of fear. The premise of the book is that each day, for 40 days, there is an affirmation and a journal prompt to follow that will eventually lead to a transformation in perception. At 8:30 a.m. I was setting an hourly reminder for today’s affirmation on my phone: “I believe in miracles”. The second I was finished, my boyfriend walked into the room and handed me his phone with a grim expression on his face, “It’s your sister” he said, staring at me. It was an unusual time to call and I immediately thought this can’t be good. When I lifted the phone up to say hello, my sister blurted out that my grandma, the one who has been living with us for years, had passed away. She was crying and I could hear my mother crying hysterically in the background. After the phone call, I thought back to the time about a month ago when I was in my “manic” phase and I felt a shift in my grandmother’s energy. This was a day or two before I went to the mental hospital. I went home and visited grandma, who had just gotten back from the hospital after falling and breaking her wrist, and I could feel something was radically different about her. For example, I had just moved out with my boyfriend and she remembered that I was home alone a lot, so she said that she was going to get me a poodle as a house-warming present. This was strange because only a few weeks before she had forgotten altogether that I had a boyfriend of 5 years. Not only that, she seemed incredibly calm and peaceful, which was uncharacteristic of her. I think only by having such a radical change in my own intuition and energy could I recognize that she was going through almost the same thing, and that realization shook me to my core. She had let go of the misery she was holding onto for her entire life, and I could clearly see it. After my talk with grandma that night, I walked into the kitchen and told my mom I needed to speak with her. I hesitated, but I told her that I didn’t think grandma has much time left and that she should call relatives over to see her. She looked at me wide-eyed and asked why I thought that. I told her that I just knew, I could feel it, and I started crying. My mom told me she had a similar feeling but wasn’t sure if it was true. Since my mom believes I’m “gifted” she listened to my advice and called all of our relatives the following day. So today I was thinking about the affirmation “I believe in miracles” and how it relates to my grandmother’s death, given the uncanny timing and background of the situation. Birth is considered a miracle, your perception is radically changed then, so death must be a miracle also, right? According to Gabby’s definition, I would say so. I believe my grandma’s ego had finally died about a month before her actual death. My sister kept saying things like “she’s been so nice, it’s weird”, “I think that fall knocked some sense into her”. I think what happened to her was a miracle. She had finally given up the perception she had been holding onto for so long. She was so thoroughly reminded of her own mortality after that fall and hospital stay that it changed her perception of life, and she was finally at a somber peace. From this experience, I have new motivation for doing this work, I don’t want to wait until I’m 83 years old and ready to die before I finally make peace with the world as it is.

A lot of people and the desteni community rely on self- forgiveness to attain self realization. Everyday you try to notice your reactions and analyze them after with putting them into writing. You analyze your reaction, write about it, state that you forgivee yourself and then make as self-correction statement. I don't see anybody talking about this on this forum. So I Will just make a thread about it. The act of forgiving yourself out loud, speaking has a physical effect on the body. It actually alters your DNA. When you notice a reaction coming to the surface, forgive yourself out loud like mentioned above. Also Put everything into writing. This is how you do proper self-forgiveness. @MiracleMan You can learn how to do self-forgiveness properly with this free course http://lite.desteniiprocess.com/ They also have forums, blogs and other advanced courses to go deeper. Valentin Rozman studied personal development and spirituality for 20 years and he told in one of his videos that those tools triggered the biggest transformation in his self. http://desteniradio.blogspot.si/2016/11/desteni-radio-3-what-is-self-forgiveness.html http://desteni.org/ http://desteniiprocess.com/ https://eqafe.com/ http://destonians.com/ I have just copied an pasted this fro ma reply I did in the past. This is from yesterday. Also copy paste.