Just speaking from personal experience, I doubt Leo would agree with what I'm saying because he seems to believe in or at least perpetuate the idea of enlightenment being a pleasurable experience, which I now realize is not. Over the past several weeks, through much contemplation and certain insights I have gained through other supposedly enlightened teachers, I've triggered a few epiphanies in the process. For one thing, Leo is absolutely right when he said that your ego is actually the entire llfe that you have lived. Every influence, major or miniscule is factored into the aggregate of influences that sums up your ego. I'm talking all the way back to your broken leg and the birds chirping outside your window when your were six years old. The more substantial influences, are obviously your parents or friends.  I haven't smoked weed in years on account of the fact that it's what first triggered the unraveling of my reality. I was never the same since I first saw through myself and everyone else. I don't even remember what exactly I saw but whatever it was, it made me question everything I ever believed in and transformed me in the aftermath. Now, revisiting the drug, I saw an incredibly stark difference in my mode of thought while high as opposed to when I'm sober. This seems obvious but the point I'm trying to make comes from the fact that my thought patterns were based on religious precepts while I was high and were entirely secular when I wasn't. I'm quite disgusted by religion in general so why would I think thoughts about God, Satan, etc. all of a sudden. I thought about this for days until I realized that those weren't my thoughts, they were my mother's thoughts. My mother is deeply religious and her deeply ingrained influence still lies dormant within my mind regardless of how I feel about religion.  However, because those thoughts weren't mine, the same had to be true of my more secular thought patterns that have been conditioned through various influences. None of my thoughts are mine at all. Everything I think each and every day is a replay of a soundbyte that I've heard from someone or something else at some point throughout my life. That soundbyte came from whoever that person got it from and the next and the next and so on. Ego is seemingly endless. There's no real telling where it starts and ends, although it's not infinite in the same way reality is. Going even further, I realized that to be "ego-less" i.e. "enlightened" I would have to systematically unlearn every belief I have about everything and denounce every single life experience I've ever had. This is why so few people become enlightened. You have to be insane to want something like this or incredibly unlucky. You have to hate ego so much to the point where your willing to burn every bridge with the people in your life and figuratively burn yourself alive. This is hell. Most people don't even have the mental strength to question their beliefs. Think about the idea of systematically destroying everything you hold to be true. That can drive a person insane. This is also why psychedelics can be incredibly unpleasant experiences for people (see horrific trip reports). I would imagine that the most psychedelics rip you out of your own body except without your permission and it's no holds barred. There's no pause button, you can't tap out. It's surrender or suffer.  There's also no free will as a result because what you are and what everyone else is is a phantom. There's no telling where the thoughts that you're thinking came from to begin with. Everything that you are is a consequence of biological drives, life experiences, and outside influences, none of which you were directly responsible for. You can take control to an extent by exposing yourself to different influences but you are ultimately at their mercy and at the mercy of the influences which came before.  In any case, because reality is infinite, none of this even matters. Everything that could happen or could have happened to you in your life is already happening in this reality or another. It doesn't matter what decisions you make, there's no such thing as "fate". Everything is a coincidence, a logical consequence of an infinite number of permutations. There is no such thing as "death". You are always existing all the time somewhere somehow.  Do whatever the fuck you want. Also, Jed Mckenna is right, why the fuck would you want to be enlightened? Enlightenment isn't this blissful, lofty state that spirituality has made it out to be. If you were truly "enlightened" i.e. the "truth-realized state" or "untruth-unrealized" then you wouldn't be able to function within society. YOU DON'T WANT THIS. There's nothing to be gained. Meditation is a waste of time, at least in my opinion. Self-inquiry and contemplation is more fruitful, but nonetheless there's nothing to seek out. Stop wasting your time seeking enlightenment. Just try to enjoy your life. I know Leo is trying to sell you all something and may hate me for this but that's the truth.