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

[Leo Gura]

9 minutes ago, Someone here said:

 Beautiful brother! But Leo I have a question..the way you are describing it here appeals to the ego..as if God is only rainbows and butterflies..isn't full consciousness of God reveals that God Is also by virtue of being all that there could ever possibly exist and more ..I say doesn't that mean God has an ugly side if you flip the coin on the Beautiful side ? God is no more beauty and profundity than it is anguish.. Stress.. Pain..sickness.. Death.. Murder.. Rape.. Theft.. Cancer.. Sorrow...depression.. Madness.. Loneliness.. Disability.. Disasters.. Chaos.. Hell.   

Obviously I'm not talking about ego here.

You are thinking of God is some theoretical sense. I am talking about direct consciousness of God in you right now. It's not about positive or negative, it's about how conscious you are of God in the present moment.

You can just sit on the couch and have the most profound moment of your life. Murder, rape, etc are irrelevant there.

Yes, if you are raped you will still suffer.

[Someone here]

12 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Obviously I'm not talking about ego here.

You are thinking of God is some theoretical sense. I am talking about direct consciousness of God in you right now. It's not about positive or negative, it's about how conscious you are of God in the present moment.

You can just sit on the couch and have the most profound moment of your life. Murder, rape, etc are irrelevant there.

Yes, if you are raped you will still suffer.

Thanks.  Can I achieve this without psychedelics?  I like listening to you late at night ..it puts me in a  quasi mystical experience..you are right I have no actual consciousness of myself as God.  I have just theory from listening to you .

[Leo Gura]

19 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Can I achieve this without psychedelics? 

Hard to say.

I don't need psychedelics for it any more. But they were certainly vital to my current situation.

If not psychedelics you better be doing 200hr retreats.

Edited 14 hours ago by Leo Gura

[Someone here]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Hard to say.

I don't need psychedelics for it any more. But they were certainly vital to my current situation.

If not psychedelics you better be doing 200hr retreats.

Yeah it's difficult no matter how you slice it . You will reap what you sow . And you seem to achieve this high levels of God consciousness after putting incredible amount of work into it . Enjoy the fruits of your hard work .

[Leo Gura]

18 minutes ago, Someone here said:

And you seem to achieve this high levels of God consciousness after putting incredible amount of work into it . Enjoy the fruits of your hard work

Much more work ahead for me. This is just the tip of the iceberg of my consciousness of God.

[Lyubov]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

The search for meaning is the search for consciousness of yourself as God.

Last night I sat for an hour on my couch just stunned by my consciousness of God. This is a level of profoundity nobody understands.

You are God and you just sitting there is infinitely profound, if only you develop enough understanding to inferface with it.

It's not even about truth, it's about being God. Being God is more meaningful than any human meaning. Nothing has meaning next to God. Your experience of reality becomes divine and metaphysical, not human. That's what I suffer for. Suffering is just the ticket price to God's Disneyland.

I think you would be creating “suffering” just as much if not more if you didn’t align with truth. We can never know what wasn’t. Truth is freedom. I don’t see how denying truth somehow leads to one creating less suffering, maybe through choosing to live unconsciously or sheer denial can one avert their attention from their misalignments, Perhaps for some time but the weight eventually gives way.

I also think the word suffering is a lofty word which really just means painful emotions. And since painful emotions always reasonably come from the beliefs one holds, it’s basically a choice to create this suffering or not, this is a bit of an oversimplification if one hasn’t done some of the leg work needed to become aware of one’s beliefs and how they are 100% in one’s will, and I say this compassionately if one here isn’t yet conscious of this and creating suffering for themselves. But I try to write here in plain and understandable English.

So basically suffering is just a reminder to come back to oneness and live in the mystery and beauty.

Edited 12 hours ago by Lyubov

[kavaris]

An ongoing insult

you know whats a funny way to explain it, its like... basically you could look at it like, everyone is a facet of some object in the center of your own mind.. thats like the very very basic reaching towards (which means nothing to explain in word form) but whats more apropos is to think of it like its everyone insulting you, and which isnt necessarily a bad thing... its just like, if you are to imagine everything, then its sortve like an on going insult, a comedy, alas there isnt an alternative. its just like, "how do you navigate what we are now calling an ongoing-insult", you just do somehow... you swim towards the center and find ways to make it happen; to make it make sense in a way that feels like, "ehh, its not great, its not perfect... but its maybe closer/better than it was before"... thats all we can do.

i think... i think its when the language for how you see things gets darker—is when it actually gets interesting on levels that yous could associate w creativity, since its bringing back all of the original elements that you first experience... like "the devil" is an interesting character.. or... whats that one whos like the italian guitar player who gets hit over their head alot? whatever that is, lol.... like comedic/dark humor element i guess. and other sorts of odd archetypes . And then you suddenly have elements to a story that didnt initially have any place... like lost toys from the toy box typeve thing. What they could mean? who knows? could be literally anything.

[Shodburrito]

@Leo Gura

The Fundamental Contradictions in Your Approach

Reading your responses, I'm struck by several profound contradictions that reveal the limitations in your framework. I'm going to challenge these directly, not because I want to attack you personally, but because these contradictions expose something important about all developmental hierarchies.

The Fetishization of Suffering

You've created an entire identity around suffering as the necessary path to awakening. "If you knew the amount I have suffered on this path..." "The cost of Awakening is like getting mauled by a bear." "It's basically self-torture."

Have you ever considered the possibility that this suffering might be unnecessary? That the idea that awakening requires suffering might itself be a limitation you've created?

There's something almost masochistic in how you glorify your own pain. More importantly, there's a closed logical loop: you define true awakening as requiring suffering, then use your suffering as proof of true awakening.

Potential counterpoint: "Without suffering, there's no transformation. The ego doesn't surrender without resistance."

Response: This assumes transformation must occur through resistance rather than acceptance. Many profound insights throughout history have come through openness, curiosity, or playfulness—not through self-torture. Your insistence on suffering reveals more about your specific path than about consciousness itself.

The Creation of New Masters

You reject conventional social hierarchies only to create new ones. "God," "Truth," "The Good" become new masters to serve. You've escaped society's limitations only to create your own prison with different walls.

When you say "Being God is more meaningful than any human meaning," you've simply created a new purpose-driven framework, positioning one experience as objectively superior to others. This directly contradicts the freedom you claim to have found.

Potential counterpoint: "I'm not creating masters, I'm recognizing what objectively is."

Response: The moment you declare any experience "objectively better" or "more meaningful," you've imposed a value hierarchy that isn't inherent to consciousness itself. These are values you've created, not discovered.

The Truth Economy You've Created

You've established a perfect "truth economy" where:

Awakening is positioned as a scarce resource

Suffering is the currency required to obtain it

You control the exchange rate ("200 hours of meditation in two weeks")

You position yourself as having special access to this market

"Suffering is just the ticket price to God's Disneyland" is perhaps the most revealing statement. You've literally monetized access to consciousness, creating artificial scarcity where none needs to exist.

Potential counterpoint: "I'm just describing reality, not creating a system."

Response: You're describing your experience filtered through your created framework. There's nothing objective about the equation "X hours of meditation = Y level of awakening." That's a model you've created, not a universal law.

The Arrogance of Purpose

There's a profound arrogance in declaring your path superior to others. When you position "The Good" as objectively true, you're essentially saying: "I know what's best for consciousness, and anyone who chooses differently is wrong."

This creates a hierarchy where you stand above the "children" and "beasts" who haven't chosen your specific path. But what makes your experience of "God" inherently better than another's experience of family, creativity, or service?

Potential counterpoint: "It's not arrogance if it's true. Some perspectives are more developed than others."

Response: The very concept of "development" as linear progression toward a specific goal is itself a created framework, not an objective reality. Your certainty that your path is "higher" reveals more about your attachment to hierarchy than about consciousness itself.

The Heart of the Matter

What's most revealing is how you've constructed an entire ego identity around being "the one who suffered for awakening." You've positioned yourself as more awakened and connected to God than others precisely because you've suffered more. Your suffering has become your badge of authority, your proof of legitimacy in the spiritual marketplace.

This creates a psychological trap where you need others to suffer too. If they could reach the same insights without the pain, what would that say about your journey? Your entire narrative would collapse. The years of meditation, the emotional torture, the clawing your "way up God's asshole" - all potentially unnecessary.

I wonder what emotional state this possibility would trigger in you. Genuine rage? Deep depression? Existential crisis? If someone with minimal meditation practice, who hasn't tortured themselves for two weeks straight, could have equally profound insights about consciousness and reality - what would that do to your sense of identity and achievement?

This isn't just about being wrong intellectually. It's about the emotional investment in a narrative where suffering equals depth. You've created a spiritual economy where those who haven't suffered "like being mauled by a bear" are automatically disqualified from the deeper insights you claim to have.

There's something almost desperate in how you emphasize your suffering - as if you're trying to convince yourself as much as others that it was all worth it, that it couldn't possibly have been avoided, that there's no other way to reach these insights.

If your entire identity is built around "I suffered tremendously to reach this understanding," you've created a psychological framework where you simply cannot accept that the suffering was optional without experiencing a total collapse of meaning.

This isn't about whether your experiences are valid—they clearly are for you. It's about claiming your specific path as universal or necessary, and using suffering as the metric by which you judge who is worthy of "God's Disneyland."

The Question Worth Asking

Why do you need to position your experience of "God" as superior to other experiences? Why not simply say "This is the path I've chosen, and I'm trying to share it with others who may find it valuable" rather than claiming it's objectively better?

There's a freedom in recognizing that all frameworks, including spiritual hierarchies, are created rather than discovered. This doesn't diminish your experiences but contextualizes them as one possible way consciousness can experience itself—not the only or best way.

The true liberation might not be in "knowing God" but in recognizing that consciousness creates its own truth rather than discovering it—including the truth you've created about the necessity of suffering for awakening.

[Letho]

 

@Shodburrito Bro, you have no idea how annoying it is to watch the implicit downfall of society as people like you use ChatGPT to avoid effort on a self-help forum. This is just laziness fueling an ego battle, sending you in the wrong direction, which ironically proves Leo’s point, although I disagree with him in many areas and find his responses very disingenuous a lot of the time. He calls that 'necessary manipulation' in his pickup indoctrination while criticizing other so-called narcissists… Bro, your post is just so bad that I felt the need to chime in. You’re not here for truth, man. You’re here to prove Leo wrong so you can feed your own sense of superiority without actually putting in the work. You’re not just setting yourself back, you’re setting a bad example for others, making people believe real growth can happen without struggle. It’s subtle, but the butterfly effect is real. If we don’t push back against this kind of pseudo-intellectual posturing on this forum or anywhere else we ‘have to’ put up with it, we let culture erode further. Stand for something real because right now, it just sounds like you’re doing mental-emotional gymnastics to see which inner delusion wins the day, then waking up and starting all over again, still without a foundation to stand on, only to come back here and post another ‘whatever’ rant to feel like you’re getting somewhere. But you’re not. And deep down, you know it.

Because Leo is right about one thing, bro effort is required, even to type. Look up all the positive benefits of challenge on the brain. There’s negative stress, which you could call Leo out for misrepresenting and then there’s positive stress, the kind that actually builds awareness and intelligence in mind, body and heart. Everywhere else, growth is about engineering consciousness and awareness to symbiotically loop, refining the schemas of creative development between the two. And yes @Leo Gura, there’s a difference between awareness and consciousness. You do need to differentiate and you shouldn't be mixing/interchanging the two.

And after reading your posts and follow-ups shodburitto, honestly man it just feels like the intellectual equivalent of a hamster copy-pasting another hamster’s rant from some hidden Reddit lurker forum to win an imaginary debate. You're not even present. You're not thinking. Your WiFi is just re-routing on a bad signal, spreading misinformation to itself, infecting other weak signals, and creating an entire network of delusion.

[Breakingthewall]

7 hours ago, Davino said:

I remember once I become so God Conscious the only word I could say was God, the only thought I could think was God.

I remember laughing at myself visualizing how my life would be from now on. Going to a bakery and asking for a God please. God thank you. God had all the meanings in it.

If you said a word, you were operating within the framework of meaning, that is, of the structured mind. True mystical opening doesn't occur at that level; it's a liquid level, where no word means anything, since any meaning is solid. Everything solid must melt to become what you are without the conceptual mind or the energetic barriers of the psyche. God is a mental construct, and it's absolutely impossible for the phrase: You are God creating reality, to be anything but completely false. 

Regarding the issue of suffering for spiritual openness, as humans, we must overcome innate barriers of fear, attachment, and need for acceptance, which are very solid and innate. As we see, it's very difficult to truly overcome them, and people fall into traps where they believe they've overcome them when what they've done is modify that fear and attachment. The idea of God is a typical example: the ego, unable to retreat, swells until it encompasses all psychological reality and becomes God. This remains limited, and, being a distortion, it produces more suffering and narcissistic vibrations.

This whole issue of spiritual openness requires intelligence to see where you're stuck. If you don't see it, tough luck; you'll stay there.

 

Edited 8 hours ago by Breakingthewall

[gettoefl]

Question 1: Do I need a guru/religion? Question 2: Do I need to suffer to get to my true nature?

Question 1 is yes. Else you won't ask question 2. Only guru/religion tells you to go through suffering. The world will tell you avoid suffering at all costs. And will sell your widget after widget to do just that.

You don't know your true nature. You are born ignorant. Your world is mad if you haven't noticed. You will stay like this your whole life.

Until you come online

and find what's missing.

You have lived millions of lifetimes and gotten nowhere, all the while preparing you for this.

Thanks be to God in the highest!

This is your time.

Edited 2 hours ago by gettoefl

[gettoefl]

The answer to pain is, you are not a body.

When you drop misidentification, sensations arise but not yours.

[Avidya]

@Leo Gura

On 19.3.2025 at 11:49 AM, 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.

Have you actually done that? 

[Leo Gura]

2 minutes ago, Avidya said:

@Leo Gura

Have you actually done that? 

Of course

[Rishabh R]

@Leo Gura Congratulations.

By the way does self help or philosophy makes one stronger ?

I experienced a setback yesterday but it affected me for less than an hour. I find myself smiling a little when I began feeling the negative emotions or accepting them. Earlier I used to suffer a lot more than that before doing self-help.

Could you explain what just happened to me.

[Avidya]

6 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

Of course

If you regard psychedelics as a part towards awakening and if awakening requires boredom(not sure if you mean this) and suffering I have 2 questions:

1. In your experience has psycedelics inflicted boredom?
2. If not, how does the suffering psychedelics infer deviate from traditional forms of awakening(kriya yoga, meditation etc)
3. What is the nature of suffering you're speaking about?
Is it an existential pain (realising how wrong one is at once current level of perception and lack of integrating insights from peak) or more like growing pains from actually integrating lessons/insights?

 

Edited 1 hour ago by Avidya
correctness

[Leo Gura]

7 minutes ago, Rishabh R said:

@Leo Gura

By the way does self help or philosophy makes one stronger ?

I experienced a setback yesterday but it affected me for less than an hour. I find myself smiling a little when I began feeling the negative emotions or accepting them. Earlier I used to suffer a lot more than that before doing self-help.

Could you explain what just happened to me.

Of course as you develop you take things less personally so suffering is reduced.

Some things just roll off your back.

5 minutes ago, Avidya said:

If you regard psychedelics as a part towards awakening and if awakening requires boredom(not sure if you mean this) and suffering I have 2 questions:

1. In your experience has psycedelics inflicted boredom?

No.

5 minutes ago, Avidya said:

2. If not, how does the suffering psychedelics infer deviate from traditional forms of awakening(kriya yoga, meditation etc)

There is bad trips.

There's the difficultly of facing harsh truths about yourself and reality.

There's destablization of your mind.

There's various risks and dangers.

5 minutes ago, Avidya said:

3. What is the nature of suffering you're speaking about?
Is it an existential pain (realising how wrong one is at once current level of perception and lack of integrating insights from peak) or more like growing pains from actually integrating lessons/insights?

Any of that. Plus physical damage. Plus the suffering of losing your access to God.