So tired of gurus telling me I need to suffer first to deserve happiness

[Leo Gura]

It's not primarily physical pain. It is the emotional pain of the ego struggling and dying.

[Leo Gura]

11 minutes ago, Rishabh R said:

I have meditated for 5 years straight with frequency of daily meditation only with little breaks of 4 days 5-6 times.

I mean two weeks of non-stop meditation. 200hrs of meditation in two weeks.

That's what this path requires. Over and over again.

Edited yesterday at 10:52 AM by Leo Gura

[Rishabh R]

2 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's not primarily physical pain. It is the emotional pain of the ego struggling and dying.

We all struggle from emotional pain. The only difference is duration of pain. Some of us distract ourselves when it occurs while very few feel through it. Which is the key to reducing it.

Your journey is different than everybody because people have different problems.

[Rishabh R]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I mean two weeks of non-stop meditation. 200hrs of meditation in a row.

Nope dude you are much more advanced 👍.

I have a question -- Is self help for the weak or the strong as if most people could do it then why most people are anti Self- help, anti-philosophy even though they respect spiritual fantasy in their minds which they call spirituality? 

[Nemra]

@Leo Gura, do you meditate now?

[OBEler]

9 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I mean two weeks of non-stop meditation. 200hrs of meditation in two weeks.

That's what this path requires. Over and over again.

But if you stick to psychedelics you can skip those tortures. So where would be the suffering then if you stick to psychedelic mainly.

 

A video about covering the costs of awakening would be awesome. No one ever did that before. All gurus show only the positive side. Maybe shinzen young is more real but he is one of those rare real teachers.

[Leo Gura]

5 minutes ago, OBEler said:

But if you stick to psychedelics you can skip those tortures. So where would be the suffering then if you stick to psychedelic mainly.

Psychedelics have their own suffering.

But psychedelics are not enough for this work. Psychedelics are just the beginning.

You cannot skip the tortures if you want serious embodiment.

Edited yesterday at 11:07 AM by Leo Gura

[OBEler]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Psychedelics have their own suffering.

But psychedelics are not enough for this work. Psychedelics are just the beginning.

You cannot skip the tortures if you want serious embodiment.

Ok so you mean deep contemplating also and mindfulness, self honesty. But that's not really hard suffering or paying a big price.

 

Locking in a dark room for 7 days, injuring your knees from sitting too long only to get a psychosis afterwards for months, that is a price.

Edited 23 hours ago by OBEler

[AION]

Awakening is suffering but living a normal life is suffering too. 
 

Awakening suffering is like going to the gym and suffering; it is a good kind of suffering, even a suffering that can be enjoyable in a masochistic way…. while living, eating and fucking like a pig is suffering like you have been walking crooked with a bad posture.  Being a hedonistic pig is a suffering that is not pleasant .. 

 

Men are the pinnacle of creation so we are made to be that. And anything less will cause even more suffering than the road less traveled. 
 

It is not about reaching the highest level of enlightenment but about the road itself. And lovingly carrying the cross of suffering. 

Edited 23 hours ago by AION

[Schizophonia]

We actually like to suffer.

[Davino]

8 minutes ago, Schizophonia said:

We actually like to suffer.

For a greater Good.

[integral]

You figure out all of this stuff automatically as you go

You’re trying to get a girlfriend and you can’t so what do you do? Self-development.

You’re suffering and you don’t know why? And you want to stop suffering…

so you seek a solution?

The guru is just giving you a solution.

Thinking you “deserve” a girlfriend is incel mindset. Instead of focussing inword to grow, they blame externally their  problems. Because the world owes them something apparently. They are incapable of self development.

The guru is telling you that in order to solve your problems you have to grow up.

[Something Funny]

2 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

I mean two weeks of non-stop meditation. 200hrs of meditation in two weeks.

That's what this path requires. Over and over again.

If one were to do this, would you eat and cook or do you just drink water?

[ExploringReality]

@Leo Gura when clawing up your way in God's asshole, be cautious of God's farts and poop 

[Schizophonia]

2 hours ago, Davino said:

For a greater Good.

I hope.

[The Renaissance Man]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Self-help has a much lower cost than serious Awakening.

Most people can tolerate the cost of self-help.

Very few can tolerate the cost of Awakening.

The cost of self-help is like a bee sting. The cost of Awakening is like getting mauled by a bear.

 

@Leo Gura you said many times pick-up was atrocious for you. Was that really a bee sting compared to the cost of awakening and meditating for two weeks straight?

Would you call going to the gym and training until you're almost throwing up suffering? Suffering as a word in this context doesn't resonate at all with me. Because I'm the one choosing to do it. If it's not worth it I can always stop.

Also there's an undeniable pleasure in the pursuit, in the focus and drive that gets you to practice in the first place.

[ItsNick]

Awakening and development are the high hanging fruits. You can choose that you value these things enough to suffer for them, or you don't.
It's just the hero's journey.

 

They teach you stuff this in children's movies if you paid attention. This is from a lesser known spiritually-themed children's movie:

(got reminded of this song because a friend recently mentioned this was his favorite childhood movie)

[Atb210201]

You don't need to suffer to deserve happiness that's bad framing.

A more suitable frame of mind would be happiness is there and if I'm not happy then I haven't had enough suffering yet to let go of all the suffering.

Suffering is only there to remind us that we aren't doing something right.

[Joshe]

14 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The reason for being good is not because you're told but because your intelligence recognizes that it is objectively the best way to live. Living badly is not intelligent.

This reminded me of this: 

"Traditional virtue often involves conscious effort - trying to be good, kind, or ethical through willpower and intention. It's like constantly checking yourself against a moral compass and adjusting your behavior accordingly.

Natural virtue," by contrast, emerges spontaneously from clear perception and understanding. When you truly see a situation clearly, the right action presents itself as the most straightforward and practical response. 

Vernon Howard told a story about a young man who kept getting pulled over for not wearing his seatbelt. Each time, he was baffled, convinced the cops were unfairly targeting him. But the truth was—he wasn't seeing reality clearly. The law existed for his protection, not to restrict his freedom. If he had truly understood the situation rather than resisting it, wearing the seatbelt wouldn't have felt like an external rule to follow—it would have simply been the obvious thing to do, like carrying an umbrella in the rain or wearing a coat in winter. His resistance wasn't to the rule itself, but to his misperception of why the rule existed.

This explains why wisdom is so valuable. It transforms virtue from a constant effort of will into a natural expression of clear understanding.

Instead of being caught in the chaotic cycle of desire, moral calculation, and bad outcomes, the wise person is spared the headache of constantly colliding with reality.

When we see clearly (wisdom), our actions naturally harmonize with how things actually are. This alignment with reality has several benefits:

1. It eliminates the internal conflict that comes from fighting against what is. The young man fighting the seatbelt law creates his own suffering through resistance to reality.
2. It resolves the artificial separation between knowing what's right and doing what's right. When perception is clear, action follows naturally without the need for willpower or moral calculation.
3. It creates a kind of freedom—not freedom from rules, but freedom from the constant internal struggle of forcing ourselves to comply with external standards. (reminds me of House, M.D. )

"

This is why wisdom is so badass. It's freedom. 

[Lyubov]

Most people want to have a justification for what they are doing and look for some reason to explain why what they are doing is valuable and important, so they focus in on the painful emotions they are creating for themselves and dress it up in lofty ways by calling it suffering.