Which teacher had the strongest influence on you?

[Tim R]

Question in the title; who had or still has the most influence on your spiritual development? 

If you don't want to limit your answer to a single teacher, that's perfectly fine of course

[Rilles]

Rupert Spira. Once I started watching him all of the spiritual mumbo-jumbo actually started making sense for once. He is crystal clear in his talks and doesnt fill it up with a bunch of fluff. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by Rilles

[Kundalini Cataclysm]

Alan Watts was my introduction. That's where it all started.

Adyashanti, especially lately.

Artem Boytsov was definitely one of, if not THE most influential.

[BipolarGrowth]

Leo > Daniel Ingram > Frank Yang

Doing vipassana while listening to/watching Frank’s content is like a high dose psychedelic pinpointed at enlightenment Realizations (permanent baseline consciousness shifts). Very powerful stuff. He seems to have really gotten something at a depth I’m not finding elsewhere. 
 

Krishna & Buddha had the biggest impact as far as historical teachers go. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by BipolarGrowth

[Cathal]

Osho/rajneesh the most prob, sadhguru, j.krishnamurti, buddha, christ, and my father who caused me the suffering to find them all 

[Carl-Richard]

I got into spirituality because of Terrence McKenna. I started meditating because of Leo and then had my first awakening. When I started having consistent meditation-induced awakenings, I was mostly into Jan Esmann, Sadhguru and Martin Ball. When I started having spontaneous awakenings, I was listening to Alan Watts and Rupert Spira every night while falling asleep.

[Cathal]

@Carl-Richard yeah me too, t.k got me super intrigued about psychedelics way before i even knew what the word spirituality meant. his lectures are like music

[Dazgwny]

This is easily Leo. Made it relatable to the average man. Spira and watts are great, but they’ve a way about them which just doesn’t relate to the average man. I had many questions a few years ago and had no idea where to go with them. Coming across spira and watts and many others, just had me thinking what on earth are these people goin on about. It was the depth of Leo’s videos, the explanations, taking these things into my everyday life, ones like the actuality video, perception, what is truth, and many more, hours of detailed explanations, but also giving you a guide of how to investigate these things for yourself. These type thing made it much easier to realise what the likes of spira were actually on about, what they were pointing to. Now I appreciate them a lot more. I had no idea how to delve deep into my own mind before watching Leo’s work. Too many also make shit seem far too holy rather than just being a normal bloke or whatever. And I found that most of these new agers just sidetrack you with their nonsense beliefs. Ya could sit in the pub and have a beer with Leo and a good laugh, and also a serious discussion, although he’d probably stick to the lemonade from what he says. It’s a posh cafe with a slice of cake and a cup of tea with spira?. So yea that’s a pretty easy question for me to answer

[SOUL]

Life

[WelcometoReality]

The single most influencing teacher. Definitely Adyashanti. 2nd most is Gangaji.

 

[SOUL]

1 minute ago, BenG said:

Woah, deep!

Seems like it would be obvious

[Cathal]

but also to remind ourselves these are all just a man in the mirror, that the role of the guru is to show you that you are the guru. to not get obsessed or hooked on any guru in particular regardless how much you got captivated! 

[Shin]

Suffering was a nice teacher.

Without enough time feeling its presence, I would have never pushed me to feel better.

I'd suggest to listen to suffering, it's a great teacher, and is way more precise and eloquent than Leo ever will be

Edited November 23, 2021 by Shin

[BipolarGrowth]

42 minutes ago, Shin said:

Suffering was a nice teacher.

Without enough time feeling its presence would have never pushed me to feel better.

I'd suggest to liste nto suffering, it's a great teacher, and is way more precise and eloquent than Leo ever will be

Suffering is definitely a strong teacher and creation of energy and motivation on the path.

[SgtPepper]

Leo.

 

[The Lucid Dreamer]

Ya know, funnily enough, it was actually Sam Harris that got me started.  He has this pretty damn profound 26 minute guided meditation on his podcast that I listened to which got me to see clearly that sense of self was illusory.  But once I connected with that, I also somehow realized simultaneously that having no self or no identity necessarily means I must be all identities and that I am going to live all lives.  I realized then that Sam Harris was missing something and that there is something far more profound about existence and consciousness than what he realizes.  I went on to have deeper realizations into the nature of Infinity and relativity(with the help of cannabis :P), all of which I thought were my original ideas, until I started sharing my insights with my brother.  While talking to him about all my mind blowing insights, he was like, “Uh… have you ever heard of Alan Watts?… Cause you’re basically just saying the things that he teaches” 

I then looked up Alan Watts and started listening to his teachings.  My mind was blown as I was hearing him repeat back to me all of things I had been realizing on my own.  (Albeit in a much more eloquent and articulate way)

That was how I started going down the rabbit hole which eventually led me to Leo’s videos.  But as far as who has had the biggest impact on me, it’s a toss up between Leo and Alan Watts.  I definitely gotta thank Sam Harris for that initial push in the right direction though. 

Edited November 23, 2021 by The Lucid Dreamer

[softlyblossoming]

@The Lucid Dreamer Hi, I just wanted to say that that is SUCH a cool backstory!

[Aaron p]

I studied under Christian half-mystics for a few years...boy called Andrew wommack. Talks about how to experience the power of God directly and to hear god's voice and follow his will from the source of peace in direct experience. Also focuses on direct revelation and true insight, became not learned. Andrew wommack was good like, still full of delusion tho...as I probably still am right now

 

[softlyblossoming]

@The Lucid Dreamer Thank you for sharing!

[PurpleTree]

probably Eckhart Tolle