Leo's Practical Guide To Enlightenment

[Leo Gura]

34 minutes ago, Huz said:

can you elaborate on this, do you mean it can shift your world view so much that it could halt you pursuing your passions/LP for example? I know this is personal but could it be that radical?

It's so radical you still stop believing reality is real.

I sometimes wake up in the morning and think, "I clearly know this entire reality is pure fantasy. Yet here I am stuck in this dream. Okay, let's get to work."

[Huz]

33 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's so radical you still stop believing reality is real.

I sometimes wake up in the morning and think, "I clearly know this entire reality is pure fantasy. Yet here I am stuck in this dream. Okay, let's get to work."

Haha thats so interesting. Yeah and there is no reason not to get to work because you love it!

Martin said it took him 10-12 times to permanently awaken from the dream. Are you still pursing this path through Meo or still on a break because of how brutal it is?

[Light Lover]

38 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's so radical you still stop believing reality is real.

I sometimes wake up in the morning and think, "I clearly know this entire reality is pure fantasy. Yet here I am stuck in this dream. Okay, let's get to work."

That is depressing as hell.

[Bebop]

@Light Lover It is at first but after a while you get used to it, even though there's nothing here the fact that it is so complex just completely amazes me  

[Light Lover]

@Bebop yeah... actually I can see that. Thankyou :), I guess all you can do is laugh at it and not take it seriously in the end.

[Bebop]

@Light Lover Yeah we are all characters playing the same game, only we are pretending not to be Had a pretty funny shroom trip today where I couldn't stop laughing about the fact that I thought I was going to die someday haha

[Leo Gura]

49 minutes ago, Light Lover said:

That is depressing as hell.

No, it's so beautiful no words can describe it.

Some mornings I wake up and think, "OH MY GOD!!! It's an infinite illusion!"

[Leo Gura]

49 minutes ago, Huz said:

Martin said it took him 10-12 times to permanently awaken from the dream. Are you still pursing this path through Meo or still on a break because of how brutal it is?

I'll still be using 5-meo, but it was never my only tool.

I like to research and try all sorts of different methods.

I would never hinge the entirety of my salvation any external thing or substance.

[123456789]

Is it fine if instead of doing one 60 minute sit I'll do two 30 minute sits? 

[Leo Gura]

@Mr Lenny That will yield less results. It's critical that you quiet the mind. In 30 minutes, the mind is only starting to settle.

I recommend you spend 100 hours straight doing self-observation. Just to see for yourself the power of momentum.

If you do it for 30 minutes twice a day, you may not ever get enlightened. It's just a drop in the bucket compared to the hardcore self-observation required to break through.

100-hour stretches of contemplation are merely child's play compared to what the masters do.

And if your excuse is, "But Leo! I don't have 100 hours to contemplate." Well... then you're not really serious about waking up. You've lost all sense of priority, drowning in a bottomless pit of depravity and illusion.

[Guest username]

@Leo Gura Can we sleep?

[Leo Gura]

@username Yes, but contemplate in your sleep.

What am I?

Who is sleeping?

Who is dreaming?

[whiterabbit]

On 1/3/2017 at 3:46 PM, Leo Gura said:

@Mr Lenny That will yield less results. It's critical that you quiet the mind. In 30 minutes, the mind is only starting to settle.

I recommend you spend 100 hours straight doing self-observation. Just to see for yourself the power of momentum.

If you do it for 30 minutes twice a day, you may not ever get enlightened. It's just a drop in the bucket compared to the hardcore self-observation required to break through.

100-hour stretches of contemplation are merely child's play compared to what the masters do.

And if your excuse is, "But Leo! I don't have 100 hours to contemplate." Well... then you're not really serious about waking up. You've lost all sense of priority, drowning in a bottomless pit of depravity and illusion.

@Leo GuraWhere does this idea come from? Which masters and in which traditions specifically told you so and did they esplicitely mention that the goal of the practice is to escalate up until a 'break through' moment? It would help if you were more specific when you mention 'masters' in general as authorities. Because I can count heaps of 'masters' as you call them that say nothing like that. Also, have you broken through or become enlightened yourself? If not you should then apply your own advice  to drop any idea of what enlightenenmet is like and question it, regardless of what masters say or do. You just invited someone on this blog to ask himself: what if all this englightenment this is a scam and Leo is lying to me? Well, then what if those monks running  marathons around the mountains are just fucking wasting their time not knowing it isn't necessary? What if they are no different from the person shopping and shopping and shopping thinking that at some point he/she will be happy? What if they are too victims of their own programming? Those are questions that  you should ponder as part of 'radical open mindedness' and in your pursuit of Truth.  Also you just said it can take ONE SECOND or never. So where does the 100 hours straight idea come from? 100 hours is mere child's play? How about choosing the ONE SECOND option then?

Actually, to be fair, one should be practicing 24 hours per day. Why limit it to formal sitting? Whether you are a monk, a CEO or a farmer. If you wash the dishes and while you do, you wash the dishes. If you walk and while you do you... walk. If you breath and ... breath. Well, you're practicing. Continuous unbroken awareness. Then finally there's no practice or not practice. Although I understand that in your self inquiry approach there's the question 'who am I' that defines the perimeter of the practice, as opposed to sheer mindfulness meditation.

Anyway, I'd like to point out a major logical fallacy in your description of awareness and the Self. You write that the YOU has been tricked into identification by society, parents and other people from birth. Going along with your assumptions, this is clearly a logical fallacy: since those people are part of the Self itself, or only exist within the awareness,  how can they have convinced the Self or the awareness to identify with a portion of awareness itself, (the limited YOU that's often associated with body/the Voice etc), when there was no distinction to begin with? It's clearly recursive thinking with flawed premises. If you want your audience to understand this conceptually, it makes more sense to simply say that the Self experiences itself through a multitude of specific individual ways, and YOU are just an option. Not that other people such as your mom and dad, or teachers have pushed YOU to misidentify yourself. Since they are also YOU. They didn't exist independently from YOU which would be required in order to convince YOU that you are who you mistakenly think you are. 

Thanks for initiating this thread, and best of luck with all the work with Actualized.org

 

Edited January 6, 2017 by whiterabbit

[Leo Gura]

@whiterabbit Sit down and contemplate for 100 hours straight and discover for yourself what happens.

Every great master has spent huge amounts of unbroken time in meditation or contemplation. This should be obvious enough if you've done any kind of serious spiritual practice, or hung around people who have.

I am not here to make logical arguments. All logic is illusion. Any logic I use in communicating with you is purely for your benefit. I hold myself to no logical standard because all logical standards are groundless and arbitrary. Logic is a game. The sooner you can drop logic and all expectations that people maintain logical coherence, the better off you'll be. I am not here to make a logically coherent model of enlightenment. That is impossible anyway. I am here to practically guide people.

Of course the Self experiences the self. The problem is, you're not actually conscious of that when you start this process. That's something you must discover. I framed it the way I did so as to seed doubt in the reader. Yes, your Mom and Dad are you. But that's just an fantasy for you right now. So I'm not going to speak to you as though its true for you. I'm going to speak to you from within your place of delusion. When you actually interact with your Mom or Dad, you DO NOT perceive them as you. If you did, you'd already be enlightened, in which case you'd no longer need guidance for enlightenment.

[whiterabbit]

@Leo Gura Have you sat down and contemplated for 100 hours straight? And if so you empirically verified that's a prerequisite for enlightenment?

I must also assume you do not consider the 10-day Vipassana camp as 100 hours straight, since in the 10 days there's breaks in between the 1 hours sits (which they don't do in the 20 or 50 days, giving it more continuity of practice). Otherwise you are accepting the idea that awareness can also be sustained during lunch or dinner break or bathroom. Then if that is the case... you come to realize that awareness can be sustained at all times, cutting the distinction from practice and non practice. Of course in my opinion, this needs not to be taken as an excuse to slack out of formal sitting right off the bat. On the other hand it's equally silly to sit for two hours per day and then totally failing to integrate the practice into life by going completely unconscious when going about your work, or meal or a walk etc, and never reminding oneself of the direction of one's own focus.

As you can see, your tally of the hours becomes really tricky. What's practice and what is not?  What qualifies as 100 hours?

As for the logic Leo, fine I agree, let's wrap it up here. But you often play with the field advantage in your forum and comments. You appeal to logic to make a point and then when someone finds a massive flaw in it, you change the framework and say that logic doesn't matter. Then if it doesn't matter why bother making THAT specific point you made? You could have as well made a damn stupid meaningless point about kittens and it's equally relevant to enlightenment since logic doesn't matter anyway! Why not speaking about kittens and Kim Kardashan in Actualized.org since logic doesn't matter? Now you may say that you make a point only to help PRACTICALLY, then I've just told you that the point you made in this specific instance is so logically flawed that it cannot possibly help EVEN PRACTICALLY given it doesn't even hold onto its premises...

You say you're not here to make a coherent model of enlightenment? Unfortunately that's exactly what you're doing. It's a path of self discovery, yet you tell people: 1) What do do step by step 2) Exactly what they will find at the end of the path 3) How to check if they have really found it! haha. And then you  offer a huge theoretical framework, and the logic for which a certain amount of hours would be required as if you were talking about building a lego house. As for the masters, I've hung around teachers, people who have practiced for 20-30-40 years, met monks, listened to interviews with monks as well, and frankly none of those I listened to has ever said 'it takes this or that long', nor 'enlightenment will be like this' (e.g. baammm there's no one at home - your quote) etc.etc. Not to dismiss your teachings at all. You're bringing one perspective out of the many, with its own value. And we're all grateful for it. But this generalization you constantly use like 'speak to masters and it's obvious' ... well, I did and .... it's NOT obvious. Especially because 'masters' means nothing. Who are we speaking about here? Do you have a probe to measure the enlightenment of specific human beings then hold them up as a standard? What I see it's just MEN. Some of the highly admired so-called enlightened people are also flat out bullshitters by the way. Some have also kind of flipped out after decades of meditating their asses off, and frankly going to the supermarket or having a cuppa with a friend every now and then would have totally helped them! 

I'll tell you something more. Since they're all just MEN, good  'food'  for for enlightenment may equally likely come from unenlightened people!

But the main point for your audience is: did you get it yet? Because if not, you don't know what you're talking about. And when you say you didn't get it just because you're focusing on business and research, then drop actualized.org. Then come back and talk to me.

P.S. I'm not trying to be an ass. I like your channel Leo.

Cheers,

Edited January 7, 2017 by whiterabbit

[Leo Gura]

@whiterabbit Nothing is a prerequisite for enlightenment. You can get enlightened sitting on the toilet reading a magazine.

If you don't like the way I teach it, feel free to do it your way. I am not an ideologue and I am not here to convince you of anything. I'm merely sharing what I've discovered through my own work and 1000s of hours and tens of thousands of dollars of research across dozens of highly experienced sources.

Rather than debating, you might be better served by actually sitting down and doing even 1 hour of the practice suggested, to taste the results for yourself.

Beware that the one who doesn't get it -- and is the biggest bullshitter -- might be you. After all, you are the whole problem.

 

[Acharya]

On 20/12/2016 at 0:54 PM, Leo Gura said:

No, the brain is just an idea. Examine what "the brain" really is.

Can a mentally handicapped person reach enlightenment?  Would you please explain me this "idea" thing? 

@Leo Gura

Edited January 7, 2017 by Acharya

[Hunter Arrington]

@Acharya We would have to study history on this subject probably. It depends what we really mean with mentally handicap as well. "This being the case, intelligence or lack of it is not an issue; make no distinction between the dull and the sharp-witted. If you concentrate your effort single-mindedly, that in itself is wholeheartedly engaging the way. Practice-realization is naturally undefiled. Going forward is, after all, an everyday affair." - Dogen, Zen. Only discussion, no claims here. 

[zoli1964]

First of all i want to salute everybody or should i say i salute me through everybody

@Leo Gura oau i did't saw that coming so here it is some questions:

what purpose have meditation and body training if everything is an illusion?

why are u continue with your everyday life as once u experienced the TRUTH (enlightenment)? 

Thanx for sharing this amazing stuff.

[Acharya]

@Hunter Arrington I don't mean the "dull" person, but one with genetical issues and/or with physically menomated brain. The one that might not even imagine what "to concentrate the effort single-mindedly" is.

Edited January 7, 2017 by Acharya