This how to (not) pick a guru

[lmfao]

This video will tell you everything about how to go about choosing a guru. There is something to be learned from this. 

 

Edited April 13, 2018 by lmfao

[moon777light]

good video

[Elisabeth]

Registering for programs (or even just purchasing products) = buying a sense of belonging. Lol, that can be so true. 

[sholomar]

Whatever clicks with the way you are wired to think and gets you results. My first glimmer of personal development was David Hawkins and a Course in Miracles, Gary Renard's book, and more enlightenment focused books, but I found I preferred a more science minded approach which hacks the human brain and explains why we act the way we do by analyzing the brain structures and human evolution, which I found with Leo and a few other sources. I don't necessarily believe in spiritual enlightenment aside from it simply being a state of mind you can achieve with the right inputs (or lack of inputs as the case might be) I've found the book "your survival instinct is killing you" to be quite informative, but really Leo's work is more than adequate for my goals. He took all the best content and did a lot of the sifting through it for me, which is why I did throw 50 bucks his way in a donation and got the nice little picture that I saved kittens from a cauldron of boiling acid  

Even with these books, videos, gurus, etc, without the discipline to get rid of the hedonism in your life and set goals designed to rewire your subconscious mind with better habits, all the knowledge in the world will be useless because intellectual knowledge doesn't translate into a better state of being unless you apply it in a way the limbic system can understand, which is actions and experiences.  If I watch one of Leo's videos and then get stoned and play video games, not much progress is achieved versus watching his video and going and lifting weights or having a more productive hobby that gets me out of the house.  

I'm not the type to worship any guru as some sort of "special" figure anyways.. people are people and nobody is really more "special" than anyone else. They might be more advanced spiritually, but if they are they'd be the first to agree with me on this point. 

Edited April 14, 2018 by sholomar

[Vipassana]

"Man exists as if in sleep. Man is alseep. Whatever is known as waking is also sleep. Initiation (Gurus) means to be in intimate contact with one who is awakened. Unless you are in intimate contact with one who is awakened it is impossible to come out your sleep, because the mind is even capable of dreaming that it is awake. The mind can dream that now there is no more sleep.

By initiation is meant that you have surrendered to someone who is awakened. You say "I do not understand, I cannot understand. I am part of the world that is mad and asleep. I am dreaming all the time." This feeling can come even from a sleepy person, because the sleep is not always deep. It wavers, becoming very deep at times and then coming up and becoming very shallow. Just like ordinary sleep is a fluctuation of so many levels, so many planes, the metaphysical sleep that I am talking about also fluctuates. Sometimes you are just on the border line, very near to Buddha; then you can understand something of what Buddha is talking about, what he is saying. It will never be exactly what was said, but at least you have had a glimpse of the truth.

On part of the initiated, initiation is a total letting go: a complete trust, a complete surrender. It can be never partial . If you surrender partially, you are not surrendering, you are deceiving yourself. There can be no partial surrender, because in partial surrender you are withholding something, and that withholding may push you again into deep sleep. That non surrendering part will prove fatal; any moment you may again be in deep sleep" - OSHO - The Art of Esctacy

We have surrendered to a Materialist Paradigm and our guru is the collective society and you partially surrendered to Leo or other teachers when you realized the deep sleep we are in. Leo does a great job of laying down the foundations of epistemic patterns of the mind now it is your job not to cling to ideologies and become aware of how you're alone in this Universe.