Leo's Practical Guide To Enlightenment

[Martin123]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

@Martin123 Do it your way then. I'm not here to debate with you.

Yes. How could I do it any other way hehe.

[bobbyward]

@Leo Gura when you are doing your self inquiry, do you ask yourself questions and contemplate or do you just sit with a quiet mind?

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, bobbyward said:

@Leo Gura when you are doing your self inquiry, do you ask yourself questions and contemplate or do you just sit with a quiet mind?

In the early and middle phases, you ask questions to focus your mind.

At the advanced phases, you become so focused on the questions, and you've asked them thousands of times already, so they can drop away and you are just left in a sort of meditative state plus you are deeply wondering.

When you pose the questions, make sure you actually get traction. Wonder very deeply. Observe your experience very closely.

[AlwaysBeNice]

4 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

If that's how you define enlightenment, then it will take you 50 years to get enlightened. Good luck.

Can you think of a better definition?

Is there anything else to do or be than embody or self realize? Who cares how long it takes, this isn't something you do to put on your resume and then quit.

[Leo Gura]

4 hours ago, Snick said:

@Leo Gura

I think my consciousness work towards enlightenment is affected by family happenings. 

How do you manage to handle them when all they speak about are practical nonsense, materialistic bullshit, carrier and gossiping. 

Isn't this a dilemma, if you join you look like a fool to them for not joining the the conversation or you pretend bad feel bad afterwards, like if high consciousness is broken. 

Or you don't join them at all. But then you feel like a bolter. Like you have something against them or something. Which I haven't, I love them, but I don't want to see them and that cause bad conscious. 

I guess you are pragmatic and never joins social happening that you are forced to be a lier or an awkward person that makes a fool out of himself. Those are the options when I join. Like if I can't really win. 

Would you like to say a few words. Even if it sounds crazy I take my consciousness work very seriously. 

Your family happenings got nothing to do with advancing your spirituality. Why would you expect them to?

Do your consciousness work all alone, and don't expect any social support, unless you are specifically in an ashram or workshop where such support is promised.

4 hours ago, AlwaysBeNice said:

Can you think of a better definition?

Is there anything else to do or be than embody or self realize? Who cares how long it takes, this isn't something you do to put on your resume and then quit.

Yes, enlightenment is simply awakening to What you are. Nothing more. What you do with it is another matter.

The issue isn't time, but that you are conflating the realization of Truth with changing the self, which are two very different things.

[Leo Gura]

@Snick Well of course. You play with pigs, you're bound to get dirty

Use it as in-field mindfulness training. As you get more experienced with meditation, you'll start to carry it into your everyday life more, not just the cushion.

And you don't have to be an arrogant ass about your spirituality. A Buddha can get drunk with the villagers. Read some Ryokan poetry.

[Natasha]

9 hours ago, Snick said:

I didn't mean that! Of course I do the work alone, lol, I would never talk about these stuff to family members, they will never get it! 

But I feel like consciousness doesn't remain crystal clear and fully innocent after a family happening. It's like I get infected by low consciousness. They like to ask questions to nail my innocent pretentious being as they see it. Only friendly mocking, but it still comes from low consciousness 

Do you feel that way too? It's dilemma because I think it's a bad idea not to show up. But if I do, there is a price to pay.  

My Mom's apartment is being remodeled, so she's temporarily staying with me. It's been kinda challenging... imagine being around someone else's monkey mind on a daily basis. I love my Mom and I want her to feel welcome and accepted, but sometimes I have to assert boundaries and retreat. Especially when I meditate, she would start doin smth around the house making commotion, or asking questions, or talking about stuff, etc. And when I carry on with my sit and don't respond, she would complain that I'm ignoring her. I do try to give her my attention and attend to her emotional needs, but I also let her know I have my own stuff to do apart from her. As Leo said (and Eckhart also mentioned in one of his vids), use it as in-field mindfulness training. It's not easy. As I'm typing this, Mom is walking around huffing and puffing, because I'm on the forum and not doing what in her mind she thinks I should be doing at this moment 

   

Edited May 28, 2017 by Natasha

[Natasha]

@Snick Also, this talk from Eckhart Tolle 'How to Deal With Unconscious People' is really good too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqr98O8QT3M

Edited May 28, 2017 by Natasha

[Guest username]

I'm utterly overwhelmed by the nuances of all the different paths ,and I just want a direct experience before I get lost in concept.

I already do a practice, but would just doubling down on self-inquiry be better to get me my first glimpse? I just want to know what's True so fucking badly, but I'm just totally lost.

I self inquire, and I find nobody. I have no clue who I am. But I've got no experience of this abiding non-dual awareness/ Nothingness/ God/ no-self/True Self/ Ain Soph/ Brahman/ Absolute Infinity/Cinnamon Toast Crunch.

 

[Natasha]

@username It's not an experience, it's a shift in perspective. You are beyond the limits of the physical body, infinitely. You are the container of all that exists, boundless. You are no-thing-ness in which every-thing appears and disappears. You are IT right this very moment manifesting yourself as 'username'. 

Edited May 31, 2017 by Natasha

[Leo Gura]

@username I find that self-inquiry is quite difficult. Meditative techniques can be more effective for getting first glimpse. For example, mindfulness meditation with labeling is how I got my first glimpse. But that glimpse was nowhere near as deep as is necessary. Still, an important step.

No matter what technique you do, you need enormous focus and momentum to break through. Just doing a few hours per day is not enough in most cases. You need overwhelming momentum. Like 100 hours straight of self-inquiry or meditation. Non-stop, non-stop, non-stop. That's when you really have a decent chance of a breakthrough. At least that's been my experience.

If you just want a glimpse, psychedelics make it SO ridiculously easy. You can accomplish in 10 minutes what you couldn't accomplish in 2 years.

Yes, dabbling in techniques will get you nowhere. Eventually you gotta pick one and go balls to the wall with it.

Doing retreats is the key to breakthroughs. The stuff you do at home is child's play by comparison to the work accomplished at a retreat.

Stick with it. Remember, it took the Buddha 6 years. And he was going at it HARDCORE. If you're really serious, you need to be much more hardcore with your practice. Most of ya'll here are WAY too soft and lazy. You haven't yet felt what true seeking feels like, where your mind is ready to explode from effort. All those Neo-Advaita people like Ekhart Tolle and Rupert Spira have filled your minds with fairytales of effortless instant enlightenment. Common sense should tell you that if it was that easy, every damn fool would be enlightened.

[Leo Gura]

@unknownworld I don't say they're invalid teachings. I just make fun of the way newbies misinterpret them.

Buddha was definitely seeking. He sought so hard he nearly starved himself to death. You cannot even begin to appreciate that kind of seeking. Seeking is the whole path! You seek until you can seek no more. Telling people not to seek is worse than telling people to seek. The oldest Indian scriptures tell us to seek like our hair is on fire.

What the Buddha called the Middle Path would make you shit your pants, it was so hardcore. Don't go romanticizing the Buddha, or Jesus, or Mahavira, as some softy Ekhart Tolle figure. They were certainly not that.

The non-seeking is the organic END RESULT of seeking! You cannot skip the seeking part and go straight to non-seeking. Your logic is so silly! It's like saying, "Don't go to school to become a doctor. You already are one!" Yes, it's true, once you're a doctor, you no longer need to work hard at being a doctor. Of course! But you don't tell that to newbies.

What you're doing is taking a nuanced piece of advice -- "Stop seeking" -- which was meant for highly advanced practitioners and hardcore seekers who've been seeking for years like their hair was on fire, and you're dolling it out to newbies who haven't truly seeked a day in their lives because they are so addicted to internet, TV, food, porn, shopping, success, family, work, ideologies of all kinds, etc. and expecting that to help them get enlightened.

Well, it will have the opposite effect.

All nonduality pointers and advice is contextual and individual. You need to match the medicine to the disease. The mind entangles itself in many ways, both to the right and to the left on the spectrum. The advice is only useful when it helps people mitigate their personal excesses. Excess of seeking is NOT most people's problem today. Complacency is the overwhelming problem.

The proof is always in the results. If the Neo teachings worked as they are advertised, the whole world would be enlightened. And yet we have Trump for president. So it just doesn't pass muster. So much for Tolle's New Earth. The New Earth might turn out be nuclear winter.

The problem you, and Ekhart Tolle and Rupert Spira, have to explain is why the whole world isn't enlightened, if no seeking is required. And also why the vast majority of the most-enlightened masters where such hardcore seekers that they abandoned their careers, houses, wives, and children.

This whole non-seeking debate is just absurd. Just factually false and confuses newbies. The problem is not that they're trying too hard, it's that their trying too little.

The 100 million Ekhart Tolle fans out there are trying too little. Which is why they aren't enlightened and don't even have a clue how serious enlightenment is. They are dabblers. And that's fine. But don't go spreading that dabbler mentality around here. You can go to Ekhart Tolle for that.

[Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj]

It seems like Shinzen Young understands this pretty well, maybe you should listen to him. I have no idea but it seems like it's easy to get one sided...  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dfDTAqlZ7dc

Edited June 1, 2017 by Sri McDonald Trump Maharaj

[bobbyward]

11 hours ago, unknownworld said:

There is no awakening unil you stop seeking. Buddha was not seeking. Seeking has an end goal. With awakening, there is no going from point A to B like with other things(such as learning a new skill).

as long as you are suffering, its impossible not to seek happiness. seeking will only stop when suffering stops. seeking does not only come in the form of spiritual seeking, if you are working towards a new job, relationship, more money that is also seeking, anytime you want life to be different than the way it is you are seeking, so even if you drop spiritual seeking, you will still be a seeker. 

@Leo Gura rupert spira is my favorite teacher, he doesnt advocate not seeking. in fact he says the thought '' there is nobody here and nothing to do, is the separate self appropriating the teaching'' and to keep seeking until you are fully satisfied. he also says the sign of enlightenment is lasting happiness not the thought there is nobody here and nothing to do. 

 

[Leo Gura]

@bobbyward I'm actually a fan of Spira's. He's very good. The teachings just need to be properly understood and put into full context.

[Echoes]

@Leo Gura Leo what do you mean with "physical death"? Literally the death of the body? 

What happens if I would shoot myself in the head now? You said once in this thread that the brain creates experiences, but also that the brain is not in direct experience and therefore only an assumption. In one video you said "you think you take a chemical substance that alters your brain and just creates chemical effects...No! you seriously belief that there is a brain that renders reality..." (something like this) 

Can you explain more about the role of the brain in all this? 

[jse]

On 20/12/2016 at 5:30 AM, Leo Gura said:

Leo's Practical Guide To Enlightenment

Is there anything practical about enlightenment?

"Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water."

[bobbyward]

the funny thing is almost all of the enlightened teachers who tell you not to seek, were themselves seeking intensely for years. their own life story contradicts what they are saying. 

plus trying not to seek is just another form of seeking. 

[Afonso]

@Leo Gura In your retreat videos, you do a lot of Mindfulness Meditation with Labeling.

Does it boost the power of your Self-Inquiry?

Do you use exactly the same technique as described in the video of Mindfulness Meditation?

Where can we learn more about that technique and study it deeper?

In the West, Mindfulness looks like another vague term for formal Meditation, but I'm seeing it's not the same thing.

Thanks!

[Leo Gura]

Ekhart Tolle sought till the brink of suicide. So that should give you a good idea of how much effort this process demands.

I'm not here to be ideological. What I say, I say for pragmatic purposes, to guide people, anticipating common traps. The most dangerous idea they can get is that they will reach enlightenment by continuing their lazy, unconscious way of life, hoping to mirror Ekhart Tolle's 1 in a billion instant enlightenment. That is a totally invalid strategy. Not based on my ideology, but based on simple common sense pragmatics.

Seeking tends to auto-correct.

Non-seeking rarely does. As evidenced by 7 billion non-seeking, unenlightened people.

This is not about Leo. This is simply about laying out the raw facts of the spiritual path and what it takes to get shit done. The overwhelming problem is that people fail to get it done. If 90% of people were getting it done, I wouldn't be writing so forcefully. The reality is that less than 1% will get it done. Don't worry about me, I will get it done. My cause isn't just to get myself enlightened. I have bigger plans. If you feel that's egotisical, well... that's your projection. I know my cause and what the universe wants me to do. I'm not gonna wait for my own enlightenment to help others.

20 hours ago, Echoes said:

@Leo Gura Leo what do you mean with "physical death"? Literally the death of the body? 

What happens if I would shoot myself in the head now? You said once in this thread that the brain creates experiences, but also that the brain is not in direct experience and therefore only an assumption. In one video you said "you think you take a chemical substance that alters your brain and just creates chemical effects...No! you seriously belief that there is a brain that renders reality..." (something like this) 

Can you explain more about the role of the brain in all this? 

You have to understand that everything you know, absolutely everything, including physical space, is a mental construction. You have to appreciate how brutally significant this is. It means that the distinction you make between physical/non-physical, real/unreal is a construction! Which means -- when you realize this -- that you will physically die!

Enlightenment is equivalent to physical death from the ego's point of view. Not just psychological death, but physical death. Because you will cease to exist as a physical object. Because you will realize that physical objects are illusions. This is why it's so difficult. Everything you think of as solid physical reality will unravel like a cheap sweater, and so will your physical body and brain.

The body, the brain, the mind, you, other people, life, sentience, language, physics, chemistry, history, morality, mathematics -- all of these things are totally unreal.

This is a very radical thing we're talking about. It's nothing short of annihilating reality.

To complete this enlightenment processes fully means the body will remain, but you will be dead inside. Because there will no longer be an inside! The idea of "an inside" will die. It never existed in the first place. You merely assumed it. And as you should know by now, assumption is the mother of all fuck ups.

Don't worry too much about it though, your death is the most beautiful thing that could possibly happen.

P.S. Did you really think you could become immortal without dying? This enlightenment thing is good, but it's not THAT good. You gotta pay the ultimate price. Your head has to go on the chopping-block.

1 hour ago, Afonso said:

@Leo Gura In your retreat videos, you do a lot of Mindfulness Meditation with Labeling.

Does it boost the power of your Self-Inquiry?

Do you use exactly the same technique as described in the video of Mindfulness Meditation?

Where can we learn more about that technique and study it deeper?

In the West, Mindfulness looks like another vague term for formal Meditation, but I'm seeing it's not the same thing.

Thanks!

Yes, it boosts self-inquiry enormously, as I have said many times.

I use exactly the technique as I say in the video. Don't make it complicated. It's a very simple technique. You just have to discipline yourself to do it. And it's not even that difficult to start.