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Knowledge has its uses, it is not absolutely useless. But if you are going inwards it becomes more and more useless; the deeper you go the more useless it is. If you are going outwards, the farther you go into the world the more useful it becomes. The world respects the knowledgeable person. It needs experts; it needs all kinds of people carrying information, knowledge, expertise. But in the inner world the question does not arise: in the inner world the same knowledge becomes a hindrance. That which is useful in the outside world becomes a barrier to the inner. It is a bridge to the world; it is a barrier to the inner exploration. Those who are explorers of their subjectivity, it is utterly useless. There, something else is needed: not knowledge but wisdom. Knowledge is information; wisdom is transformation. Knowledge is borrowed; wisdom is your own. Knowledge is ego-fulfilling; wisdom happens only when the ego is dropped, utterly dropped, totally dropped. Knowledge gives you the feeling that you are higher than others; it is a certain kind of power, just like money. Knowledge is power. So if you have a postgraduate degree you feel better than those who don’t have postgraduate degrees. If you have a Ph.D. you feel a little more egoistic. If you carry a D. Litt. of course you become very special. If you have many degrees, then you start feeling that you are not an ordinary person.

Religion is not ritual. It is not something that you do. It is something that you become. So there is always a possibility of a false religion existing somewhere in the society. False religion is when the inner transformation has been substituted by outer ritual. Then you go on doing things and those things will become a deep-rooted habit with you, but nothing is achieved. People go to the church and the temple, and they repeat the same prayers again and again. Nothing is happening to them. Somewhere on the way they have missed; somewhere on the way they have lost the real coin — and they have substituted it by a false coin. Remember this, that the real, authentic religion is concerned with the being, not with the doing. It has nothing to do with your outer way of life. It has something to do with your center. Of course, when the center changes, the periphery follows; your outer life also changes. But the reverse is not true: you can change the periphery — the center will not change. And you win live the life of a hypocrite, a life of hypocrisy. You will have a different periphery from the center, not only different but just the opposite, the very contrary. And you will be split in two. Religion is not ritual. Remember that. Religion is an inner consciousness, an inner awakening. Many things on the surface will change, but the change must occur within you first. The true religion is existential. Buddha lived it, Jesus lived it -- but remember, Jesus was not a Christian and Buddha was not a Buddhist, he had never heard of the word. The truly religious people have been simply religious, they have not been dogmatic. It has always happened to only a few people and then it disappears from the earth because the intellectuals immediately grab it and they start making beautiful ideologies out of it -- neat and clean, logical. In that very effort they destroy its beauty. They create philosophies, and religion disappears. ISIS talks about Jihad. It is very easy to die for religion but very difficult to live for it. Actually, it is always easy to die for some cause. All that is needed is a kind of madness. Dying happens in a moment, so even a single moment of insanity is quite enough. But to live, awareness and wakefulness are essential. Only those who live for religion know religion. Those who martyr themselves for religion do not know it at all. You cannot understand Jesus through a priest. He himself has not known. He has read, he has thought, he has contemplated, he has speculated, philosophized. Yes, he has a very cultivated mind, he knows the scripture; but to know the scripture is not to know Jesus. To know Jesus you will have to know your innermost nothingness. Without knowing it you cannot make anybody else acquainted with Jesus. Repressing your desires and destroying your desires is not the way of celibacy, because if you repress your desires you will remain hung-up with them. Repression can never bring freedom. Repression makes you a slave. Repress anything, and that will become your master. So the so-called celibates in the monasteries are continuously obsessed with sex.

@Prabhaker What you refer to is a little bit inaccurate as it depicts only the Hinayana and sutrayana path of buddhism, the path of renunciation. But this is not the only path that exists within buddhism. Actually, there are three principal paths or methods of teachings, none being more perfect or effective than another. In fact, all are really precious. 1) The path of renunciation (that you talk about) : The sutra teachings of the buddha, the four noble truths. The basic principle is that, to bring an end to th suddering, it is necessary to renounce or abstain from carrying actions that produce negative karma. By observing rules/ precepts and guarding one's body/speech/ mind, one's mind rests more easilly in concentration and mindfulness is more easilly guarded all day. (Imagine if you had to follow 252 rules how mindful you would be of your actions, words, thoughts). The conduct is not the goal, nor is the renunciation. This is just a tool for wisdom to develop more easilly, and reaching a state where you realize that there was nothing to renounce. In fact, a thai monk, Ajahn Chah, used to say : "I'm always talking about things to develop and things to give up, but, really, there's nothing to develop and nothing to give up" 2) The path of transformation The path of transformation can be found in tantric teachings and are based on the knowledge and application of energy. In Vajrayana or secret mantra, for example, nothing is to be renounced, and it is considered a violation to discard anything. (In vajrayana, one must recognize every thought to be the display of wisdom, every sound to be the sound of mantra, and all form to be the display of deities). If anger arises, for example, instead of blocking the anger by seeing the negative consequences of it as in the path of renunciation, the tantric practionner uses its energy as a means for transformation by visualizing himself as transformed into a wrathful form of deity. Much harder to do, and much more dangerous, but if done well, brings tremendous insights. 3) The path of self-liberation In atiyoga, or the dzogchen path, there is nothing to renounce or to transform. Easy, one can say, but if one does not have sufficient capacity, this self liberation will not bring real results and it is then advised that one should use whatever method is suited to the situation until one has acquired deep knowledge of self-liberation. In fact, many accomplished 'buddhist' yogis had a wife, children, a regular job and did not renounce anything of this life. Therefore, any spiritual practice cannot be defined by such dichotomy and all teachings meet at one point. They are tools to reach this meeting point where tools are not needed anymore and teachings can be discarded. So we cannot make hasty judgements about how it looks from the outside.

@aryberry That's not what I meant there. I meant ego is tricky in this way. When someone see's someone who has recently shed their ego, the peace of mind is obvious. When someone sees someone who shed their ego long ago, and has been living the life they have been choosing, and are fulfilled and content and living in the now, it can appear to to someone else who believes in their own enlightenment, but has not created their reality, that the person has never undergone any processes or transformation to begin with.

From time to time, unconscious emotions – anger, fear, hate, jealousy, greed, lust, cowardice, etc, run our life. Or it might be more appropriate to say they ruin our life. They are unconscious because they take possession of us often for no rational reason, or with a strength that is out of proportion to the situation that provoked them. For sex, for anger, for greed, unawareness is a basic requirement. If you repress sex you will become angry; the whole energy that was becoming sex will become anger. If you repress anger too you will become greedy; the whole energy that was becoming anger will become greedy. If you repress greed too, arises ego, pride. That’s why you will find the most crystallized egos in the monks and the nuns. You will not find such crystallized egos anywhere else. The more a person renounces, the more he represses, the more egoistic he becomes. They have done impossible things!” Now a great ‘I’ arises, the ego becomes strengthened. The transformation can happen only if first you accept your natural being. Whatsoever is natural is good. Yes, more is possible, but the more will be possible only if you accept your nature with totality — if you welcome it, if you have no guilt about it. To be guilty, to feel guilty, is to be irreligious. In the past you have been told just the opposite: Feel guilty and you are religious. I say to you: Feel guilty and you will never be religious. Drop all guilt! A non-repressed person becomes a non-egoist; he cannot carry the ego. There is no prop to support it. He becomes humble, he becomes simple, he becomes ordinary, he has no claim — he knows he is nothing.

It is a growth: a growth of your total living, out of your total living. Meditation is not something that can be added to you as you are. It can come to you only through a basic transformation, a mutation. It is a flowering, a growth. Growth is always out of the total; it is not an addition. You must grow toward meditation. This total flowering of the personality must be understood correctly. Otherwise one can play games with oneself; one can occupy oneself with mental tricks. And there are so many tricks! Not only can you be fooled by them, not only will you not gain anything, but in a real sense you will be harmed. The very attitude that there is some trick to meditation – to conceive of meditation in terms of method – is basically wrong. And when one begins to play with mental tricks, the very quality of the mind begins to deteriorate. Meditation comes to you. It always comes; you cannot bring it. But one has to be in search of it, because only when you are in search will you be open to it, vulnerable to it. You are a host to it. Meditation is a guest. You can invite it and wait for it. It comes to everybody who is ready, who is open and seeking.

Yoga’s emphasis on celibacy is not because it is against sex: it is simply making a different use of it, a positive use of sex energy. So yoga works on energy directly, it does not worry about awareness. It says that as the energy increases, you will start becoming more aware. Yoga means that now there is no hope, now there is no future, now there are no desires. So many become interested, but very few enter because your interest may be just because of your mind. Total despair is needed.Become totally hopeless – no future, no hope. Difficult. Needs courage to face the real. But such a moment comes to everyone, some time or other. A moment comes to every human being when he feels total hopelessness. Absolute meaninglessness happens to him. When he becomes aware that whatsoever he is doing is useless, wheresoever he is going, he is going to nowhere, all life is meaningless – suddenly hopes drop, future drops, and for the first time you are in tune with the present, for the first time you are face to face with reality. Unless this moment comes to you... You can go on doing asanas, postures; that is not yoga. Yoga is an inward turning. It is a total about-turn. When you are not moving into the future, not moving toward the past, then you start moving within yourself – because your being is here and now, it is not in the future. You are present here and now, you can enter this reality. Most of the Indians are hypocrites. It is very difficult to repress sexual energy for a person who is living a life in which he is well adjusted in society. If you repress sex you will become angry; the whole energy that was becoming sex will become anger. And it is better to be sexual than to be angry. In sex at least there is something of love; in anger there is only pure violence and nothing else. If sex is repressed, the person becomes violent — either to others he will be violent, or to himself. These are the two possibilities: either he will become a sadist and will torture others, or he will become a masochist and will torture himself. But torture he will. You repress sex, anger bubbles up; you repress anger.The moment you repress anger you become greedy. Mahavira taught non-violence, and the result has been that all the followers of Mahavira became the most greedy people in the world. Repression is not the way: transformation is the way. Don’t repress anything. If sexuality is there, don’t repress it otherwise you will create a new complexity — which will be more difficult to tackle. And if you repress anger, greed is even more difficult then, and if you repress greed, arises ego, pride, which is the most difficult thing to drop. Meditation is way of transforming sexual energy.

What are some things that you Actualizerz feel are good "mental/ physical/spiritual" preparations for intensive PD workshops, etc? I recently made a Mala for Meditation. One of the words I used in the mantra was *Transformation*. Within a week, there was a message in my inbox for a PD workshop with the same name! I ended up getting a bursary for the full $500 cost, and another bursary to cover my child care too!!! Incredible!!! I haven't had to conform, be in one spot, pay attention, etc...*full-time* in at least a decade! This is only a week, but it's a full, deep, intensive week! I feel like I'm having a PD growth spurt (similar to when I first began this a year and a half ago). Some of my beliefs, etc... can change on the drop of a dime, and I'm fantastically open. That said, I have a tendency to go overboard (like blacking out from sleep dep doing homework, etc). How can I go into this deeply, with full awareness, while at the same time, having this be gentle enough for me that I don't get totally overwhelmed. My motives are pure and true, I am prepared to release, travel into my dark corners, etc...Still, I have been (at least subconsciously) often more resistant and judgemental. How can I dive into this fully, to allow the ultimate blossoming to occur?

Iceland? Luxembourg? Rotterdam? I live on the west coast of BC...to me this is paradise....but home is where the heart is, anything is what you make of it, it's all about perception: is the cup half empty/ doomed, or is the cup half full/ ready for radical positive transformation?

I've been getting back into music making through guitar and electronic production and was seeing what some of the younger musicians were doing. I started watching this one lady's Indy electronic interviews and discussions she had on YouTube. I looked at her face & her I though her nose was very straight & odd. I figured maybe she was born like that. I didn't think much about it. Like with most beautiful women, the comment section was filled with typical one-track minded guys talking with their trousers warming their ankles. So as I went backwards in time on the videos & discussions to watch her creative process & the gear she used, just a few years ago, a place showed her apartment & "Holy Shit", it was like I was staring at an entirely different human being!!! The previous form of this human being was not as pretty as the one I'd been watching. However, after seeing the old version, I thought the new version looked entirely fake. After watching that video of her "before" face & then watching some afterwards, I could no longer listen to what she was saying. I was completely put off by the fact that the face I was looking at was a surgical creation...done for no reason than vanity. And also hearing in that last interview how the discussion went from music production to the dull world of money & business (the kind where you sign other artists & take a cut off the top or commission). I had to stop watching her & this transformative process from ugly, music producing person to beautiful, business/money-oriented person. I daresay I found it quite repulsive. At any rate, I recall Leo saying as one of his missions was to get us to improve ourselves in such a way that in 10 years time, we would no longer recognise ourselves! I can't think of any other more extreme measure in personal transformation than getting plastic surgery! I mean, once your face is altered, you're treated differently in the environment. For instance, in the above example, the woman went from no real comments about her looks in her normal form, to every guy wanting to fuck her & saying so in the comments section. Her looks "trumping" her talents by offering an improved illusion of flesh. It's not something I've normally seen with someone so young before either. But I was curious: does it work? If you get your face fucked with by the knife, wouldn't that lead to unrecognizable transformative effects? I'm sure there's a lot of risks, but you see shit-tons of people doing it. Like tattoos I guess. Anyone know anyone with positive plastic surgery effects to self-development? Maybe we should get nose jobs? hahaha.

An assignment at school has opened up a gate and now my brain is just flooded with ideas for exercises. You could say that those are like deliberate practice for information workers. If you've got any ideas for exercises, go ahead and post them here. If you've got any stories or experiences to report on the subject, I'm sure we'd be incredibly grateful. ------------------------------------------ I call them the KnowYourStuff exercises. Because if you don't know your stuff, you can't do them. The truth is, if you're really passionate about what you do, and if you're good enough, you'll accomplish them with ease. And, in fact, you'll be able to treat them like play. Some of these exercises are really fun and you can take the crazy to really high degrees. ------------------------------------------ Anyways, without further ado, here they are: The 4-Minute Conversion The 4-Hour Essay The 3-Circle Vision The 2-Step 3-Circle Vision The Top 3 of the Field Package The Crazy Scenarios The Paradox The MOST Inspiring Quote The One Terrible Aspect Procrastination Transformation Create your own exercises.

Sex is beautiful, sexuality is ugly, and the difference has to be understood. Sex is a natural phenomenon. Sexuality is unnatural, abnormal and pathological. When sex becomes cerebral, when sex enters in your head, it becomes sexuality. Now, the head is not the center for sex. It is getting into confusion, it is getting upside down, it is getting deranged. Sex is not the function of the head, but when sex enters in through the head it becomes sexuality. Then you think about sex, then you fantasize about sex. And the more you think, the more you fantasize about it, the more you will get into trouble because then nothing real will ever satisfy you because there is no limitation on fantasy, and reality is limited. That is the problem the West is facing – it has fantasized too much about sex. The West has become sexual through fantasy; the East has become sexual through repression. Both have become sexual and both have lost the natural capacities of enjoying sex. Both have become pathological through different routes. The West has become pathological by fantasizing sex as being the ultimate goal of life, and the East has become pathological by thinking that sex is the ultimate barrier between godliness and man. Sex is neither: neither is it the ultimate goal nor the ultimate barrier. Sex is a simple phenomenon as hunger or thirst; there is nothing more to it. Neither is it what the Eastern mind has been thinking about it. The Eastern mind is too afraid of sex. Out of fear, sex has moved into the head; through the door of fear it entered into the head. So the Eastern so-called saints are simply fantasizing about sex because they have repressed it. And that which you repress goes on coming up again and again. It cannot be destroyed; nothing can ever be destroyed by repression. Repression makes sex pathological sexuality. This is one extreme. The West has moved to another extreme. The other extreme is, fantasize about it. Sex is all, everything else is secondary, so have as much sex as you can. But you cannot have too much sex. There are limitations to the body, but you can fantasize as much as you want, there is no limitation to it. So pornography exists, blue films exist, girly magazines exist, and people are being fed on these illusory mirages. Then no woman, no real man will ever satisfy you. These are both pathological states. Sexuality is pathological; whether you come to it through greed or fear does not matter. The East has become ill through fear; the West has become ill through greed. Greed and fear are two aspects of the same coin. So on the surface it looks very different, that the East and the West are poles apart. They are not. Those who know, those who can see, can see that it is the same foolishness, the same stupidity. They have arrived to the same stupidity from different doors, that is true, but they have entered into the same place. And both have to be awakened, and both have to be made more enlightened about sex. Sex is Natural, Sexuality is NotThis is the first thing to be understood if you ever want any transformation of sex energy. The first thing is don’t deny it, don’t reject it, don’t repress it. Don’t be too greedy about it, don’t think that this is all – this is not. There is much more to life. And sex is beautiful. Still, there is much more to life, sex is only the foundation, it is not the whole temple. Repressed, it becomes sexuality. Fantasized, it becomes sexuality. One is an Eastern way of transforming sex into pathology, the other is a Western way. But nobody, either in the East or in the West, accepts that sex is a simple natural phenomenon. Neither the saints nor the sinners – nobody accepts sex to be a simple natural phenomenon. Both are obsessed with it, hence I say both are not different. Sex accepted, respected, lived, becomes love.

@Dodoster How can something not happen and still be recognized? It still has to happen but what it's definition is might be very broad. What I question is how specific can we be? Are we just solely speaking about a certain experience or has it do to with the transformation of a person that is significantly enough to speak of something extraordinary?

Hello forum members of Actualized.org, I have always been fully fascinated with the actual phenomena of reality and time. Several years ago, I had a complete ego death and this experience is still deeply embedded in my being and everyday actions and perspective. First, I want to give you an abstract overview of what my psychedelic experience was like and what deeper direct insight the experience showed me. Please note that this experience was life changing and completely forced me to reconstruct my believes and solid foundations of what I thought what reality seemed to be. During that time, it was hard to cope with all these ideas and "normal regular life". I'm still giving it a place and will keep doing this my entire life, but it was both the best as the worst experience i have ever encountered. Nothing can be unseen, but with mindful intention you can transform what you make of things. For my trip report I mainly want to focus on the important things I experienced but I will give a general overview what the set and setting was. Everything started on a regular vacation day. My friends and I had decided we wanted to try some magic truffles again since earlier experiences have always been really enjoyable and funny. On an empty stomach we all ate some truffles and slowly the effects became apparent. Some weightless feelings like being on a cloud while walking, increased colour vividness and perception in all senses. We all quite enjoyed the experience quite well, just the total ridicules of being alive and that this "substance" or tool is able to affect the experience of reality so dramatically that it almost feels like the matrix. Morphing solid shapes, everything breathing like it is totally alive like one large being. These experience often go with pure awe for beginners and can be an eye opener or something that destroys your world, perspective is crucial in how you will experience life and thus having a broad knowledge is essential to be able to position yourself in life, even if you don't exactly know what real truth is. This is why I have great respect for all people that give their life to peruse understanding and knowledge, becoming a sage like @Leo Gura also states in one of his videos is my ultimate pursuit. So, there was this moment in my psychedelic experience where I slowly began to drift away. I was standing somewhere against a statue next to some friend looking at this massive willow tree on a small island several meters away. The whole tree was illuminated by a light and I was slowly being hypnotised by its presence, the branches timelessly waving in the air. Before I entered this upcoming trance my emotion was pure indecisiveness due some situation where my friends split up and I was not able to choose whether I wanted to go with them or stay. Eventually I stayed to look after some friends but was thrown in this deeply hypnotised state. My presence was slowly merging with the tree across the water and I began to feel its history and future. I felt the cold of the winter and all the seasons that cycled over a thousand times, maybe an infinite times. I really cannot tell since time slowly ceased to exist and I became it. Everything was fast-forwarded like a time-lapse, people walking by, the environment changing over hundreds of years, until time came to an absolute end. Now reflecting on this experience the force that drove me to a complete ego death or dissolution was the pure indecisiveness I entered it early with. My reality window or perspective couldn't decide what to experience or focus on and eventually I became absolute nothingness. This timeless state of being that was undifferentiated and a complete void was still perceived as being nothing. Now this is very hard to grasp and only direct experience can show you what true infinity and nothingness is at the same time. A nice sentence I like to refer to is; Ultimate silence holds the greatest potential of invoking anything infinitely larger that itself. One of the most beautiful moments was the witness of the absolute transformation of Non-duality to the Duality. After an infinite amount of time had past in the absolute non-dual state there was a moment where two orbs of light came into my vision. They shared this dance what felt to me like pure love and reminds me of ying and yang. From the non-dual unlimited potential arose the perspective or experience of two entities both identical and it was me who give their distinct identity. I felt that I was them but also reflected on this from a distant perspective, which in turn created an experience of separation. Slowly my perspective began to zoom out or expand and I saw that my entire vision was filled with these dancing energy orbs until my complete view of normal reality emerged from this. As if reality was build from these pixels and that the human experience is somehow at this current level of awareness. This experience was just pure awe, but coming back was the hardest part. Dealing with the feeling of being infinitely away from this reality and then coming back you get overwhelmed with what you experienced and at first I just freaked out. My friends told me I was away for a long time and this really scared me. I didn't feel safe because i still had to grasp what this reality was, how it functioned and who these people were. I wanted to go home because that was the only safe place I could remember but luckily my friends calmed me down. It was one intense ride for sure! The important part I want to emphasize is this conversion of non-duality to duality since it is the absolute essence of creation. I know this can be labelled as "just a experience while being under influence" but the message is clear. You only begin to fully grasp what real masters of the mind are talking about when they speak of enlightenment. It is really you who creates your entire world, every "value" you apply to one of those orbs creates your complete experience of reality. Duality is the labelling system of the mind of how to identify anything and is build from relativity in perspective from all other values. Changing one value as to say directly changes the relation with all others and this simply is your perspective or vision what life looks like or gets experienced. Mindset, vision, belief are really the key to enlightment and will only be reveal by true dedication, integration and pursuit of knowledge. Tell me what you think about this! Has anybody else ever experienced such thing. I have the feeling that some people might have had the similar experience but were not able to completely verbalize it. EDIT: One thing I want to add is that the creation fo the universe by the big bang is exactly the same process. We arose from a timeless state and the universe as we know it was born by the creation of relativity (duality) from this non-dual indifferentiated state. Relativity is the core requisite of experiencing reality by using the ego. As relativity was born so was time and the space continium. Interesting philosophical questions arise if you take this as how this mental universe is created, are there any real bounderies if there is no ultimate outside perspective? Who knows Namaste, fellow adventurers.

intriguing Title isn't it? Want to become enlightened? Then maybe, just maybe I can help you on your path. Now don't get me wrong, I am no master. But if you can trust in my words and really read between the lines, then reading my journal, might help! Maybe? Who knows. Can't hurt to try can it? First of all, I am going to take the Liberty, of giving you a very brief background, in order to give you some perspective. Don't worry I know your not really interested in me, that's okay your not supposed to be right, your supposed to be interested in you. That's how A self is. "Your the Centre Of your own universe" Nothing wrong with that. My names Callum Aylott, I am 21 years old. I have been going deep into enlightenment for just under a year now. But have made serious progress because I have done nothing but study enlightenment, meditate, contemplate, and enquire, for this entire time. I am not joking. The moment I get up, first thing I think about, to the moment I go to bed, last thing I think about. I am obsessed! Early in 2016 I left my job. And haven't been back to work since, I have spent all of my time, and I mean all my time, trying to get enlightened. Haven't had a social life, Haven't done any of the normal everyday things that I am sure you have had your hands full with. Like, friends, job, activities, TV, relationships and so on. This is how I have made so much progress. Now there are so many great teachers out there, videos on YouTube, Books ect. And I am in no way trying to compare my self to these masters that have pointed the way for so many, including my self. But maybe I can go into the smaller details that these masters don't have time for. First of all if you are interested in enlightenment then I am going to give you some names that I recommend you to check out, I do apologise, if you have heard of these people, but it could be of help to someone out there. Peter Ralston, Adyashanti, krishnamurti, Alan watts, mooji, eckart tolle, Osho, ramana Maharashi, papaji, shunyamurti, Jed McKenna,Rupert Spira, and of course Leo. There are more but none that spring to mind at the moment. Okay so.... I have had maybe 10 enlightenment experiences, through out this entire time of study, I will go into these in detail at a later date. Where am I at right now? Good question. My mind is completely Fucking empty! When I look at something, the door on my right for example, there's just a door! Nobody looking at it. I have spent so much time in and out of egoic consciousness, and pure silent consciousness, that it has ripped a hole in my psyche. And thoughts don't have the entrancing capacity they once did. Its like these thoughts know they are not gona get anywhere now, so "monkey mind" has reduced dramatically. There is no self, and when that is fully, realised then how can a thought trick someone, there isn't anyone to trick. I want to help you, I am going to go into all the tricks of the mind, by giving you examples I have experienced, things to look out for, I will explain what a enlightenment experience feels like, transformation of the self, and more. So stick around I'll post whenever I get the chance. Peace out.

Much is possible through the Kabbalah, but the Jews have completely forgotten about it. And because they have forgotten Kabbalah they are a people without religion - the only race which is without religion.... Because Kabbalah is the basic, fundamental, essential religion for them and they have forgotten about it. It is almost as if Hindus forget about Yoga - then it will be a meaningless religion. It is as if Buddhists forget about Dhyana, Zen - then it will be meaningless. Exactly like that, once Jews have forgotten Kabbalah they have forgotten everything. Then you go on carrying your dead scriptures and.... But that is history, it is not religion, and kabbalah is one of the most fundamental sciences ever developed for human transformation.

'The Power Of Now' by Eckhart Tolle slayed me, just slayed me. I read his 'A New Earth' first, and it is light and beauty and majesty on every page, but 'The Power Of Now' is, to me, wisdom beyond just about anything I've ever read. Man, I got to the end of that book... and something huge had shifted. Just sayin' ? I sure read a ton of references towards 'A Course In Miracles' in the whack of spiritual, self help/transformation books I've read recently. From all angles a bunch of authors seem to have a great respect, gratitude and appreciation for the truths they've found in there. It is likely worth investigating in my opinion. I imagine I will own a copy at some point in the future, and have the opportunity to find out for myself. Right now I'm too busy inhaling the last of Dr. Joe Dispenza's 'Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself'. Something about the way he ties quantum mechanics, spirituality and neuroscience together is reaching me almost as deeply as good ol' Eckhart. Highly, highly recommended. Oh, and in my opinion, Leo and Eckhart are saying the same thing. Both beautifully and effectively. Leo's just a little more... in your face. Big smile.

I am already having a journal here but I want to make this one separate because it does not fit in with the stuff I write about in my normal journal. And my intuition was telling me this. After applying the pre-mortem technique I discovered that I am having problems with habits. I want to change too much at once and end up changing nothing. So the first thing that I want to tackle is my eating habit. This journal for will for the first months be a food diary. Everyday I will be posting what I am eating each day. Honestly. I don't expect anyone to read this. It will be a boring list of what I ate that day and what I want to improve. It is just to reflect each day my eating pattern.

@Nature Transcript I am reminded of the fateful day of twenty-first March, 1953. For many lives I had been working—working upon myself, struggling, doing whatsoever can be done—and nothing was happening. Now I understand why nothing was happening. The very effort was the barrier, the very ladder was preventing, the very urge to seek was the obstacle. Not that one can reach without seeking. Seeking is needed, but then comes a point when seeking has to be dropped. The boat is needed to cross the river but then comes a moment when you have to get out of the boat and forget all about it and leave it behind. Effort is needed, without effort nothing is possible. And also only with effort, nothing is possible. Just before twenty-first March, 1953, seven days before, I stopped working on myself. A moment comes when you see the whole futility of effort. You have done all that you can do and nothing is happening. You have done all that is humanly possible. Then what else can you do? In sheer helplessness one drops all search. And the day the search stopped, the day I was not seeking for something, the day I was not expecting something to happen, it started happening. A new energy arose—out of nowhere. It was not coming from any source. It was coming from nowhere and everywhere. It was in the trees and in the rocks and the sky and the sun and the air—it was everywhere. And I was seeking so hard, and I was thinking it is very far away. And it was so near and so close. Just because I was seeking I had become incapable of seeing the near. Seeking is always for the far, seeking is always for the distant—and it was not distant. I had become far-sighted, I had lost the near-sightedness. The eyes had become focussed on the far away, the horizon, and they had lost the quality to see that which is just close, surrounding you. The day effort ceased, I also ceased. Because you cannot exist without effort, and you cannot exist without desire, and you cannot exist without striving. The phenomenon of the ego, of the self, is not a thing, it is a process. It is not a substance sitting there inside you; you have to create it each moment. It is like pedalling bicycle. If you pedal it goes on and on, if you don't pedal it stops. It may go a little because of the past momentum, but the moment you stop pedalling, in fact the bicycle starts stopping. It has no more energy, no more power to go anywhere. It is going to fall and collapse. The ego exists because we go on pedalling desire, because we go on striving to get something, because we go on jumping ahead of ourselves. That is the very phenomenon of the ego—the jump ahead of yourself, the jump in the future, the jump in the tomorrow. The jump in the non-existential creates the ego. Because it comes out of the non-existential it is like a mirage. It consists only of desire and nothing else. It consists only of thirst and nothing else. The ego is not in the present, it is in the future. If you are in the future, then ego seems to be very substantial. If you are in the present the ego is a mirage, it starts disappearing. The day I stopped seeking…and it is not right to say that I stopped seeking, better will be to say the day seeking stopped. Let me repeat it: the better way to say it is the day the seeking stopped. Because if I stop it then I am there again. Now stopping becomes my effort, now stopping becomes my desire, and desire goes on existing in a very subtle way. You cannot stop desire; you can only understand it. In the very understanding is the stopping of it. Remember, nobody can stop desiring, and the reality happens only when desire stops. So this is the dilemma. What to do? Desire is there and Buddhas go on saying desire has to be stopped, and they go on saying in the next breath that you cannot stop desire. So what to do? You put people in a dilemma. They are in desire, certainly. You say it has to be stopped—okay. And then you say it cannot be stopped. Then what is to be done? The desire has to be understood. You can understand it, you can just see the futility of it. A direct perception is needed, an immediate penetration is needed. Look into desire, just see what it is, and you will see the falsity of it, and you will see it is non-existential. And desire drops and something drops simultaneously within you. Desire and the ego exist in cooperation, they coordinate. The ego cannot exist without desire, the desire cannot exist without the ego. Desire is projected ego, ego is introjected desire. They are together, two aspects of one phenomenon. The day desiring stopped, I felt very hopeless and helpless. No hope because no future. Nothing to hope because all hoping has proved futile, it leads nowhere. You go in rounds. It goes on dangling in front of you, it goes on creating new mirages, it goes on calling you, 'Come on, run fast, you will reach.' But howsoever fast you run you never reach. That's why Buddha calls it a mirage. It is like the horizon that you see around the earth. It appears but it is not there. If you go it goes on running from you. The faster you run, the faster it moves away. The slower you go, the slower it moves away. But one thing is certain—the distance between you and the horizon remains absolutely the same. Not even a single inch can you reduce the distance between you and the horizon. You cannot reduce the distance between you and your hope. Hope is horizon. You try to bridge yourself with the horizon, with the hope, with a projected desire. The desire is a bridge, a dream bridge—because the horizon exists not, so you cannot make a bridge towards it, you can only dream about the bridge. You cannot be joined with the non-existential. The day the desire stopped, the day I looked and realized into it, it simply was futile. I was helpless and hopeless. But that very moment something started happening. The same started happening for which for many lives I was working and it was not happening. In your hopelessness is the only hope, and in your desirelessness is your only fulfillment, and in your tremendous helplessness suddenly the whole existence starts helping you. It is waiting. When it sees that you are working on your own, it does not interfere. It waits. It can wait infinitely because there is no hurry for it. It is eternity. The moment you are not on your own, the moment you drop, the moment you disappear, the whole existence rushes towards you, enters you. And for the first time things start happening. Seven days I lived in a very hopeless and helpless state, but at the same time something was arising. When I say hopeless I don't mean what you mean by the word hopeless. I simply mean there was no hope in me. Hope was absent. I am not saying that I was hopeless and sad. I was happy in fact, I was very tranquil, calm and collected and centered. Hopeless, but in a totally new meaning. There was no hope, so how could there be hopelessness. Both had disappeared. The hopelessness was absolute and total. Hope had disappeared and with it its counterpart, hopelessness, had also disappeared. It was a totally new experience—of being without hope. It was not a negative state. I have to use words—but it was not a negative state. It was absolutely positive. It was not just absence, a presence was felt. Something was overflowing in me, overflooding me. And when I say I was helpless, I don't mean the word in the dictionary-sense. I simply say I was selfless. That's what I mean when I say helpless. I have recognized the fact that I am not, so I cannot depend on myself, so I cannot stand on my own ground—there was no ground underneath. I was in an abyss…bottomless abyss. But there was no fear because there was nothing to protect. There was no fear because there was nobody to be afraid. Those seven days were of tremendous transformation, total transformation. And the last day the presence of a totally new energy, a new light and new delight, became so intense that it was almost unbearable—as if I was exploding, as if I was going mad with blissfulness. The new generation in the West has the right word for it—I was blissed out, stoned. It was impossible to make any sense out of it, what was happening. It was a very non-sense world—difficult to figure it out, difficult to manage in categories, difficult to use words, languages, explanations. All scriptures appeared dead and all the words that have been used for this experience looked very pale, anaemic. This was so alive. It was like a tidal wave of bliss. The whole day was strange, stunning, and it was a shattering experience. The past was disappearing, as if it had never belonged to me, as if I had read about it somewhere, as if I had dreamed about it, as if it was somebody else's story I have heard and somebody told it to me. I was becoming loose from my past, I was being uprooted from my history, I was losing my autobiography. I was becoming a non-being, what Buddha calls anatta. Boundaries were disappearing, distinctions were disappearing. Mind was disappearing; it was millions of miles away. It was difficult to catch hold of it, it was rushing farther and farther away, and there was no urge to keep it close. I was simply indifferent about it all. It was okay. There was no urge to remain continuous with the past. By the evening it became so difficult to bear it—it was hurting, it was painful. It was like when a woman goes into labour when a child is to be born, and the woman suffers tremendous pain—the birth pangs. I used to go to sleep in those days near about twelve or one in the night, but that day it was impossible to remain awake. My eyes were closing, it was difficult to keep them open. Something was very imminent, something was going to happen. It was difficult to say what it was—maybe it is going to be my death—but there was no fear. I was ready for it. Those seven days had been so beautiful that I was ready to die, nothing more was needed. They had been so tremendously blissful, I was so contented, that if death was coming, it was welcome. But something was going to happen—something like death, something very drastic, something which will be either a death or a new birth, a crucifixion or a resurrection—but something of tremendous import was around just by the corner. And it was impossible to keep my eyes open. I was drugged. I went to sleep near about eight. It was not like sleep. Now I can understand what Patanjali means when he says that sleep and samadhi are similar. Only with one difference—that in samadhi you are fully awake and asleep also. Asleep and awake together, the whole body relaxed, every cell of the body totally relaxed, all functioning relaxed, and yet a light of awareness burns within you…clear, smokeless. You remain alert and yet relaxed, loose but fully awake. The body is in the deepest sleep possible and your consciousness is at its peak. The peak of consciousness and the valley of the body meet. I went to sleep. It was a very strange sleep. The body was asleep, I was awake. It was so strange—as if one was torn apart into two directions, two dimensions; as if the polarity has become completely focused, as if I was both the polarities together…the positive and negative were meeting, sleep and awareness were meeting, death and life were meeting. That is the moment when you can say 'the creator and the creation meet.' It was weird. For the first time it shocks you to the very roots, it shakes your foundations. You can never be the same after that experience; it brings a new vision to your life, a new quality. Near about twelve my eyes suddenly opened—I had not opened them. The sleep was broken by something else. I felt a great presence around me in the room. It was a very small room. I felt a throbbing life all around me, a great vibration—almost like a hurricane, a great storm of light, joy, ecstasy. I was drowning in it. It was so tremendously real that everything became unreal. The walls of the room became unreal, the house became unreal, my own body became unreal. Everything was unreal because now there was for the first time reality. That's why when Buddha and Shankara say the world is maya, a mirage, it is difficult for us to understand. Because we know only this world, we don't have any comparison. This is the only reality we know. What are these people talking about—this is maya, illusion? This is the only reality. Unless you come to know the really real, their words cannot be understood, their words remain theoretical. They look like hypotheses. Maybe this man is propounding a philosophy—'The world is unreal'. When Berkley in the West said that the world is unreal, he was walking with one of his friends, a very logical man; the friend was almost a skeptic. He took a stone from the road and hit Berkley's feet hard. Berkley screamed, blood rushed out, and the skeptic said, 'Now, the world is unreal? You say the world is unreal?—then why did you scream? This stone is unreal?—then why did you scream? Then why are you holding your leg and why are you showing so much pain and anguish on your face. Stop this? It is all unreal. Now this type of man cannot understand what Buddha means when he says the world is a mirage. He does not mean that you can pass through the wall. He is not saying this—that you can eat stones and it will make no difference whether you eat bread or stones. He is not saying that. He is saying that there is a reality. Once you come to know it, this so-called reality simply pales out, simply becomes unreal. With a higher reality in vision the comparison arises, not otherwise. In the dream; the dream is real. You dream every night. Dream is one of the greatest activities that you go on doing. If you live sixty years, twenty years you will sleep and almost ten years you will dream. Ten years in a life—nothing else do you do so much. Ten years of continuous dreaming—just think about it. And every night…. And every morning you say it was unreal, and again in the night when you dream, dream becomes real. In a dream it is so difficult to remember that this is a dream. But in the morning it is so easy. What happens? You are the same person. In the dream there is only one reality. How to compare? How to say it is unreal? Compared to what? It is the only reality. Everything is as unreal as everything else so there is no comparison. In the morning when you open your eyes another reality is there. Now you can say it was all unreal. Compared to this reality, dream becomes unreal. There is an awakening—compared to that reality of that awakening, this whole reality becomes unreal. That night for the first time I understood the meaning of the word maya. Not that I had not known the word before, not that I was not aware of the meaning of the word. As you are aware, I was also aware of the meaning—but I had never understood it before. How can you understand without experience? That night another reality opened its door, another dimension became available. Suddenly it was there, the other reality, the separate reality, the really real, or whatsoever you want to call it—call it god, call it truth, call it dhamma, call it tao, or whatsoever you will. It was nameless. But it was there—so opaque, so transparent, and yet so solid one could have touched it. It was almost suffocating me in that room. It was too much and I was not yet capable of absorbing it. A deep urge arose in me to rush out of the room, to go under the sky—it was suffocating me. It was too much! It will kill me! If I had remained a few moments more, it would have suffocated me—it looked like that. I rushed out of the room, came out in the street. A great urge was there just to be under the sky with the stars, with the trees, with the earth…to be with nature. And immediately as I came out, the feeling of being suffocated disappeared. It was too small a place for such a big phenomenon. Even the sky is a small place for that big phenomenon. It is bigger than the sky. Even the sky is not the limit for it. But then I felt more at ease. I walked towards the nearest garden. It was a totally new walk, as if gravitation had disappeared. I was walking, or I was running, or I was simply flying; it was difficult to decide. There was no gravitation, I was feeling weightless—as if some energy was taking me. I was in the hands of some other energy. For the first time I was not alone, for the first time I was no more an individual, for the first time the drop has come and fallen into the ocean. Now the whole ocean was mine, I was the ocean. There was no limitation. A tremendous power arose as if I could do anything whatsoever. I was not there, only the power was there. I reached to the garden where I used to go every day. The garden was closed, closed for the night. It was too late, it was almost one o'clock in the night. The gardeners were fast asleep. I had to enter the garden like a thief, I had to climb the gate. But something was pulling me towards the garden. It was not within my capacity to prevent myself. I was just floating. That's what I mean when I say again and again 'float with the river, don't push the river'. I was relaxed, I was in a let-go. I was not there. it was there, call it god—god was there. I would like to call it it, because god is too human a word, and has become too dirty by too much use, has become too polluted by so many people. Christians, Hindus, Mohammedans, priests and politicians—they all have corrupted the beauty of the word. So let me call it it. It was there and I was just carried away…carried by a tidal wave. The moment I entered the garden everything became luminous, it was all over the place—the benediction, the blessedness. I could see the trees for the first time—their green, their life, their very sap running. The whole garden was asleep, the trees were asleep. But I could see the whole garden alive, even the small grass leaves were so beautiful. I looked around. One tree was tremendously luminous—the maulshree tree. It attracted me, it pulled me towards itself. I had not chosen it, god himself has chosen it. I went to the tree, I sat under the tree. As I sat there things started settling. The whole universe became a benediction. It is difficult to say how long I was in that state. When I went back home it was four o'clock in the morning, so I must have been there by clock time at least three hours—but it was infinity. It had nothing to do with clock time. It was timeless. Those three hours became the whole eternity, endless eternity. There was no time, there was no passage of time; it was the virgin reality—uncorrupted, untouchable, unmeasurable. And that day something happened that has continued—not as a continuity—but it has still continued as an undercurrent. Not as a permanency—each moment it has been happening again and again. It has been a miracle each moment. That night…and since that night I have never been in the body. I am hovering around it. I became tremendously powerful and at the same time very fragile. I became very strong, but that strength is not the strength of a Mohammed Ali. That strength is not the strength of a rock, that strength is the strength of a rose flower—so fragile in his strength…so fragile, so sensitive, so delicate. The rock will be there, the flower can go any moment, but still the flower is stronger than the rock because it is more alive. Or, the strength of a dewdrop on a leaf of grass just shining; in the morning sun—so beautiful, so precious, and yet can slip any moment. So incomparable in its grace, but a small breeze can come and the dewdrop can slip and be lost forever. Buddhas have a strength which is not of this world. Their strength is totally of love…Like a rose flower or a dewdrop. Their strength is very fragile, vulnerable. Their strength is the strength of life not of death. Their power is not of that which kills; their power is of that which creates. Their power is not of violence, aggression; their power is that of compassion. But I have never been in the body again, I am just hovering around the body. And that's why I say it has been a tremendous miracle. Each moment I am surprised I am still here, I should not be. I should have left any moment, still I am here. Every morning I open my eyes and I say, 'So, again I am still here?' Because it seems almost impossible. The miracle has been a continuity. Just the other day somebody asked a question—'Osho, you are getting so fragile and delicate and so sensitive to the smells of hair oils and shampoos that it seems we will not be able to see you unless we all go bald.' By the way, nothing is wrong with being bald—bald is beautiful. Just as 'black is beautiful', so 'bald is beautiful'. But that is true and you have to be careful about it. I am fragile, delicate and sensitive. That is my strength. If you throw a rock at a flower nothing will happen to the rock, the flower will be gone. But still you cannot say that the rock is more powerful than the flower. The flower will be gone because the flower was alive. And the rock—nothing will happen to it because it is dead. The flower will be gone because the flower has no strength to destroy. The flower will simply disappear and give way to the rock. The rock has a power to destroy because the rock is dead. Remember, since that day I have never been in the body really; just a delicate thread joins me with the body. And I am continuously surprised that somehow the whole must be willing me to be here, because I am no more here with my own strength, I am no more here on my own. It must be the will of the whole to keep me here, to allow me to linger a little more on this shore. Maybe the whole wants to share something with you through me. Since that day the world is unreal. Another world has been revealed. When I say the world is unreal I don't mean that these trees are unreal. These trees are absolutely real—but the way you see these trees is unreal. These trees are not unreal in themselves—they exist in god, they exist in absolute reality—but the way you see them you never see them; you are seeing something else, a mirage. You create your own dream around you and unless you become awake you will continue to dream. The world is unreal because the world that you know is the world of your dreams. When dreams drop and you simply encounter the world that is there, then the real world. There are not two things, god and the world. God is the world if you have eyes, clear eyes, without any dreams, without any dust of the dreams, without any haze of sleep; if you have clear eyes, clarity, perceptiveness, there is only god. Then somewhere god is a green tree, and somewhere else god is a shining star, and somewhere else god is a cuckoo, and somewhere else god is a flower, and somewhere else a child and somewhere else a river—then only god is. The moment you start seeing, only god is. But right now whatsoever you see is not the truth, it is a projected lie. That is the meaning of a mirage. And once you see, even for a single split moment, if you can see, if you can allow yourself to see, you will find immense benediction present all over, everywhere—in the clouds, in the sun, on the earth. This is a beautiful world. But I am not talking about your world, I am talking about my world. Your world is very ugly, your world is your world created by a self, your world is a projected world. You are using the real world as a screen and projecting your own ideas on it. When I say the world is real, the world is tremendously beautiful, the world is luminous with infinity, the world is light and delight, it is a celebration, I mean my world—or your world if you drop your dreams. When you drop your dreams you see the same world as any Buddha has ever seen. When you dream you dream privately. Have you watched it?—that dreams are private. You cannot share them even with your beloved. You cannot invite your wife to your dream—or your husband, or your friend. You cannot say, 'Now, please come tonight in my dream. I would like to see the dream together.' It is not possible. Dream is a private thing, hence it is illusory, it has no objective reality. God is a universal thing. Once you come out of your private dreams, it is there. It has been always there. Once your eyes are clear, a sudden illumination—suddenly you are overflooded with beauty, grandeur and grace. That is the goal, that is the destiny. Let me repeat. Without effort you will never reach it, with effort nobody has ever reached it. You will need great effort, and only then there comes a moment when effort becomes futile. But it becomes futile only when you have come to the very peak of it, never before it. When you have come to the very pinnacle of your effort—all that you can do you have done—then suddenly there is no need to do anything any more. You drop the effort. But nobody can drop it in the middle, it can be dropped only at the extreme end. So go to the extreme end if you want to drop it. Hence I go on insisting: make as much effort as you can, put your whole energy and total heart in it, so that one day you can see—now effort is not going to lead me anywhere. And that day it will not be you who will drop the effort, it drops on its own accord. And when it drops on its own accord, meditation happens. Meditation is not a result of your efforts, meditation is a happening. When your efforts drop, suddenly meditation is there…the benediction of it, the blessedness of it, the glory of it. It is there like a presence…luminous, surrounding you and surrounding everything. It fills the whole earth and the whole sky. That meditation cannot be created by human effort. Human effort is too limited. That blessedness is so infinite. You cannot manipulate it. It can happen only when you are in a tremendous surrender. When you are not there only then it can happen. When you are a no-self—no desire, not going anywhere—when you are just herenow, not doing anything in particular, just being, it happens. And it comes in waves and the waves become tidal. It comes like a storm, and takes you away into a totally new reality. But first you have to do all that you can do, and then you have to learn non-doing. The doing of the non-doing is the greatest doing, and the effort of effortlessness is the greatest effort. Your meditation that you create by chanting a mantra or by sitting quiet and still and forcing yourself, is a very mediocre meditation. It is created by you, it cannot be bigger than you. It is homemade, and the maker is always bigger than the made. You have made it by sitting, forcing in a yoga posture, chanting 'rama, rama, rama' or anything—'blah, blah, blah'—anything. You have forced the mind to become still. It is a forced stillness. It is not that quiet that comes when you are not there. It is not that silence which comes when you are almost non-existential. It is not that beautitude which descends on you like a dove. It is said when Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River, god descended in him, or the holy ghost descended in him like a dove. Yes, that is exactly so. When you are not there peace descends in you…fluttering like a dove…reaches in your heart and abides there and abides there forever. You are your undoing, you are the barrier. Meditation is when the meditator is not. When the mind ceases with all its activities—seeing that they are futile—then the unknown penetrates you, overwhelms you. The mind must cease for god to be. Knowledge must cease for knowing to be. You must disappear, you must give way. You must become empty, then only you can be full. That night I became empty and became full. I became non-existential and became existence. That night I died and was reborn. But the one that was reborn has nothing to do with that which died, it is a discontinuous thing. On the surface it looks continuous but it is discontinuous. The one who died, died totally; nothing of him has remained. Believe me, nothing of him has remained, not even a shadow. It died totally, utterly. It is not that I am just a modified rup, transformed, modified form, transformed form of the old. No, there has been no continuity. That day of March twenty-first, the person who had lived for many many lives, for millennia, simply died. Another being, absolutely new, not connected at all with the old, started to exist. Religion just gives you a total death. Maybe that's why the whole day previous to that happening I was feeling some urgency like death, as if I am going to die—and I really died. I have known many other deaths but they were nothing compared to it, they were partial deaths. Sometimes the body died, sometimes a part of the mind died, sometimes a part of the ego died, but as far as the person was concerned, it remained. Renovated many times, decorated many times, changed a little bit here and there, but it remained, the continuity remained. That night the death was total. It was a date with death and god simultaneously.

Love is your natural expression, to fully embody it in the qualities you're seeking you have to neutralize the cacophony of unreleased emotional charges present within you that muddy your vibration and therefore your experience, both internally and externally in what you attract. By releasing emotional charges, you automatically align with the love that you are. In truth, all emotions and all experiences are love, but they are in a sense distorted into a wide array of emotional colours, some of which are abrasive and undesirable to the mind. Therefore seek to neutralize fear, anger, grief and other negative emotions. There are many methods of neutralizing these emotions. The primary tool is acceptance and unconditional presence with what arises. One must find a methodology, practice or principle that is sustainable. To make steady gains and great progress, it may not be enough to do an occasional shadow work sitting. Any effort is always good, but if you want to transform radically, you have to make the effort. When we only sometimes make effort to remove negative emotions, It can feel very overwhelming to dip into our large reserves or unintegrated charges because they feel like huge mountains in which we are only lifting a few pebbles. That is why it is important to engage in a practice or principle that is going to allow for regular sustainable release throughout your day to day life. Not just weekends or evenings. In order to make practice sustainable, it is useful to make a dedication to understanding emotions and how energy works. This will create more understanding so you won't get overwhelmed, confused or disheartened. By understanding the internal landscape, you have a map by which to navigate. Make a commitment to become aware of the negative emotions that arise in your experience, and make a commitment to allow them to be the catalyst to your highest expression by accepting them each time, which starts to release the pressure of them. This is one of the fastest routes to transformation of consciousness, which results in shifting of relationships, inner well-being, vocational goals, creativity, spiritual progress, happiness, etc. The best book I know on this subject is Letting Go - The Pathway of Surrender by David R. Hawkins.

@ajasatya I could not agree more with you. I need to do a lot of forgiveness work, which is what I've been putting my primary focus on. And it's great because I'm seeing a really fast transformation within myself. It's like I don't even recognize myself anymore. I've mentioned recently in another post that my dad passed away a few months ago, and how I had a lot of anger and frustration towards him because of how he treated me in my past. It is NOW my time to show compassion and send him love and let go. It is only my ego and my thoughts that think there is a problem. Parents play a huge part in how you view relationships and the type of relationships you attract. I've noticed the pattern that I have created in my life. I've been single for the last 8 going on 9 years and for a great reason. And I went on a wild journey where I got involved in adult entertainment for several years. I've learned so much from my mistakes. After walking away from the sex and becoming more celibate I've noticed a huge shift. Sex is indeed an addiction. And people...a lover can be an addiction if we are not careful if our thoughts are not in the right place. I've learned to give back to others and show compassion for other people while working with people using hypnosis, reiki and life coaching. I have found my life purpose. I just KNOW I need to create a Burning Self Love within myself. That is my next step. I've been seeking TRUTH since I was 16 years old so I know it is definitely my top value. And health has many aspects to it....spiritually, mentally, and physically. There is indeed a balance that needs to be kept so that we can thrive. I've taken it upon myself to drastically change my diet, which has in turn affected me mentally and spiritually. The food we eat effects the way we think. The thoughts and affirmations in our mind impact our actions, and that effects our SUCCESS! You are what you believe yourself to be! Thank you for sharing your thoughts, experiences and advice. It really does help! I'm so happy for you that you have found someone that lives and shares this TRUTH and Love. I know I will find my soul mate with patience. But right now I have more important things to work on!

Everyone at some point in their practice, probably sooner than later, will get in touch with their deep suffering they have been carrying around, and which we generally have learned to let out but to stuff up: 'be happy, tough up, don't cry, be a man, don't be selfish, don't be a drama queen' etc. But crying is a big part of the path and it will happen, and if you block it you are bringing yourself to a halt if, if you honestly seek to feel it you will fasten the transformation, either way, the dam should break at one point or the other. And if there is one thing that feels good, lightens the burden and in so literally enlightens you, it's getting in touch with our emotions and crying, it brings you to yourself, you can feel it. And paradoxically, when you feel the sadness, you don't get more attached to the 'drama' but less, you get closer to the still self and actually become more detached and at peace. So it's important and it's beautiful, always. The despair drama that is often associated with sadness does not come from the sadness but from suppressing it and not letting it all out and thinking there is no way out , and also because the belief that death is the total end and thus bad, however I know from my experience it's not, and anyone can come to the same conclusion through direct experience and or research (www.evidenceforthesoul.weebly.com). - So aside from meditation, which is always the key and path to inner fruition, what helps me also is a lot consciously connecting with a passed loved one, feeling the beauty of their return to their true self and the presence of it (either in dreams, meditation and or in an attuned regular state of being), but also the sadness that you might not feel them completely and also the strong emotion that comes from realizing the pain you have been carrying around and the lack of knwoing and being your true self as pure clear consciousness without suppression and delusion of separation. And also, watching people cry and looking at the suffering of the world head on. I always avoided these things because I thought i could not bear, but I found out that truly getting to the depth of the pain and compassion you see actually is what makes it also profound and beautiful in it's own way, that one can go so so deep (but also knowing that all eventually know the light as well). So if you feel like it, I would recommend looking at the suffering head on, look up the crying people from Syria or even people putting out their true selves in singing contests and getting recognized for once in their life. Don't be afraid, what you get in touch with you integrate and it feels good, whole and safe, but what you resist persists and that actually feels uncomfortable. Thanks for listening I hope it helps. God bless.

I'll never forget the time I stuck a fork in a live 240v socket - my transformation & enlightenment was instantaneous.

Have you read Being Human? That's the one he wrote shortly after his awakening (I think). I thought that would be the one going most into detail about his transformation. I haven't read it.

I am going through the same thing. Transformation tends to be an ugly process, but it leads to something greater.