Why do extreme physical conditions help enlightenment if they can also hurt it?

[Raze]

In Leo's blog post he says that having a bad diet which causes tiredness, brain fog, body pain, lack of focus, all distract from consciousness work. This makes sense to me, however it seems like a lot of the consciousness techniques seem to try to cause this.

For example, meditating while fasting, strong determination sitting causing extreme pain, meditating for days at a time even to the point of exhaustion. These are all sold as being more intense techniques to dissolve the ego faster.

What is the difference? Why does one work while the other stops work?

[Leo Gura]

You need to distinguish between conscious suffering, which leads to ego dissolution vs impairments to the functioning of mind and consciousness: like a hammer to the head -- which will not raise your consciousness nor dissolve the ego. It will just leave you struggling for basic survival.

Strong determination sitting may cause extreme pain, but it does not dull your mind. If it did then it would be counter-productive. Your mind needs to be sharp. Which is why a bad diet is terrible for consciousness work. Prolonged fasting can also impair the mind is counter-productive ways.

If you're going to suffer, you must find ways that don't actually impair the mind's functioning. Stress yourself but don't break yourself.

[kieranperez]

The stick works better than the carrot. I haven't met a single powerful teacher that didn't go to the "extreme" to really further their insight. When you are ready to stop fucking and get it no matter what with a single minded relentless determination that you will become conscious NOW no matter what and stay with that impatience (be impatiently patient), and not put up with more bullshit comfort tactics because NOW you truly do want to know no matter what. All this back and forth stuff for people in their pursuit is because they're not being honest about the fact that some part of them doesn't want the truth. Which is fine. That actually takes a lot of honesty to admit that which I imagine most people on this path in name don't have the courage or awareness to see or speak that truth to themselves. Which actually can create that "charged, polarized divide/conflict" which creates more questions that are worth exploring and investigating and purusing what you do really want rather than what you think which will still leave your deepest thirst unquenched until you honestly want the truth (or consciousness, to know who you are, to know that which you can always trust, the source of peace, etc. it doesn't matter, however that ultimate is cognized for you is fine) no matter what. That's actually what separates a lot of people who get far that are willing to go to what we conventionally call "extreme" (though it's not inherently necessary).