A Teacher Will Appear : An Ancient Truth In A Modern Age

[Gopackgo]

I wanted to introduce myself by sharing my story. Another function of this post is to thank Leo. 

This post contains detailed experiences that I have had. If you don't want to be influenced, don't read it.

Prior to starting law school, I was living in San Antonio while my wife  was attending law school. During this time, I was working in Family Law and hated it for a lot of reasons, but really, I hated it because I didn't know who I was. My entire life, I have been obsessed with learning, devouring information about anything I was interested in. 3 primary areas that I have always loved: Psychology (it was my major and I was always drawn to Freudian Theory surrounding the ego relationship as well as motivation: Why people do the things they do), Physics (specifically quantum mechanics, the universe, and black holes), and then a variety of other random subjects depending on what I was into.

 During these 3 years I went through a few times where I meditated, but never really looked at any kind of doctrine other than the science of meditation. One day I happened across Leo's enlightenment video when watching quantum mechanics videos on youtube. I started to watch the video, and I got to where Leo said "you are not a person" before turning it off. I will never forget this, the feeling I had when I heard those words disturbed me deeply and left an impression. I wrote it off and kept moving along with life.

Fast forward, I decide that I want to go to law school, get accepted to UH. At this time, I am in no way mentally prepared for law school, but I realized this as well as how I have been acting toward the person I love most, so I started making an effort to change by meditating a little bit and just doing what I can to prepare for the onslaught that is law school. When school started I moved to Houston where I stayed for the first month in a friends house. He was showing the house so I was the only one there. At this point, my meditation practice picks up and I start using youtube focus hypnosis. This is important because, in doing so, I learn what trance feels like. This allowed me to develop a strong muscle mind connection, where I am able to relax a specific muscle. Having not ever read about meditation, I found out later that this is exactly how you are supposed to start meditating. So in my nightly practice, after I read voluminous tomes of legal knowledge, I start going deeper and deeper into trance by just continuously relaxing my body. First I imagine a ball of energy expanding from the center of my head to push out thoughts and then imagining that I am walking through a corn field, only instead of pushing the stalks aside, I am emptying my brain by pushing aside thoughts. I started being able to really and truly clear my head (later this corn field technique translated over to everyday tasks to effectively return to the present). This is were I started going deep enough to really have cathartic experiences.

Experience 1: Though I used to get the bliss feeling that comes natural with meditation, At first, I always feel a dark presence in my immediate vicinity. I write this off, because I figure that I'm an adult, and I can handle it.  One night, I decide that I am not going to fear it anymore and just relax. Shortly thereafter, a terrifying woman appears in front of me, blurry, with head down and hair covering face. I relax deeper, and tell myself that I am going to face it. All the sudden the lady comes into focus and boom, I realize that the woman is an embodiment of all the things I hated about myself and felt guilty for. I finally forgive myself for my darker tendencies,namely, how I treated my wife, and various other manipulations that happen when you grow up. I feel ecstatic, and immediately have a religious experience where I feel connected to everything, I am everything, everything is me. The stereotypical meditation experience. I cant remember what I saw, but it looked real and filled me up with glowing energy. When I come  out, the feeling lingers for a day.

After this I kept meditating and then stopped when law school took up too much time. We finally found a house to rent and my wife moved down here. I start to truly see her as my soul mate and start asking what I can do to give her what she needs instead of seeing her like a burden. I felt (and feel) like everything was right in the world and though law school is tough, I just know in my soul that this is were I am meant to be (a feeling I hadn't felt since I had worked at the capitol). However, I am lagging behind and feel like I'm not getting the material, but I know that if I just try hard that my innate ability will carry me through, and I will  be top of my class. I had a teacher that graduated from Harvard and I am pretty sure that he developed his style, modelling after the professor in Paperchase. I raised my hand a few times in the beginning until I realized that I just didn't get it, and then do a 180 and develop a fear of speaking in front of all the smart people in class. I got called on twice in his class, and it was nerve-racking. I felt like he was taking an interest in me, and sometimes when he was lecturing, I felt deeply that he was looking at me as if trying to get a message across. But I stopped raising my hand in all classes and felt terrified often in them. At the end of the semester I forced myself to raise my hand with an idea that I thought was brilliant, and he screamed at me. I was mortified. At the end of the semester he gave an inspiring speech about the profession, and says that if you are unhappy, you should do something else now. Again, I felt like he was looking me directly in the eyes and felt this energy that he meant me.  I study my ass off, and it is very important that I show my natural skill and prowess. I get my grades back on Christmas eve, I got a C in his class, and gpa over all is 2.59 (90th percentile). I was crushed and immediately start studying ways to change my approach. Again, in my heart of hearts I know I have found my place in law. Though I had been doing hypnosis all semester, I didn't meditate, so I started again here. I should also say that during the time before and during the first semester, I helped my dad with a messy divorce. He started meditating and that prompted my to begin practicing again. 

I get back into the groove and feel great. My practice spills over into my everyday life. When I am anxious, I would use the corn stalk method and recenter my breathing to great effect. 

Experience 2: I had the insight that my ego has been the source of my problems from the beginning. This occurs when I am talking to my dad and my mind is flooded by Freudian doctrine about ego. I realized that all of my anxiety stemmed from the arrogance I used to over compensate for a feeling of inadequacy. It was simply that the inner struggle was causing an incompatibility between what I considered reality, and what reality actually was. This has been going on since childhood and is the reason that when I was placed into a room of intellectual peers, I all the sudden developed anxiety in raising my hand. 

Then a few days later, I meditated, did a focus hypnosis, and then just let myself go deeper into trance after it was finished. I had a crazy flashing feeling as my eyes were trying to flutter open, So I allow them tomand relax, and my field of vision starts going black in the middle as I relax through it. I start feeling these incredible feelings of love and glowing in my chest. I sit up and hug my knees. I think about my wife and the feeling intensifies. After I was finished, It stayed. I feel a little empty in my face, but I feel like my senses were operating in over-drive. The next day I went to school, and on the way in, I am just noticing how beautiful the world is, seeing details that used to be of no interest to me. Greens are brighter, my field of vision is wider, and I feel the glowing in my chest and pressure in my face still. I went to class, got called on in class and spoke with no anxiety, drove home and told my wife, expecting that she would think I was manic or insane. She was supportive (as usual), and not in the least bit scared. The only way I can describe it is that I felt like I was pure awareness. Living in the moment 100 percent. In class, I understood the subtleties perfectly. I was clear minded and thinking objectively and logically.

I googled my symptoms on the second day, and see all this information on "ego death". what I was feeling was exactly the same as what these people are describing. During this whole weekend, I felt like I could slip back into an anxious state. I talk to my dad who freaked me out, and feel almost normal on Sunday, meditate and back the peace. Same pressure in face, all of it. I think great, I have given myself multiple personalities or something.

Experience 3: Monday I come home and feel the need to meditate outside. So I do, go deep, open my eyes and focus my gaze on the fence in front of me. The fence starts to look like its on the same level as whats behind it. I was trying to look through the fence (and it did flicker, but I tell myself its because of a blink.) I close my eyes, and my mind goes perfectly still I see these innocuous memories that irritated me in elementary school. I cant figure it out, but I explore them, imagine that I'm apologizing, and getting a chance to explain myself to everyone involved, and then let the string of memories move on. After this my mind goes blank again. This is the crazy part. I imagine that I am in a room with all of my brain structure around a table. I think the room we are in is the subconscious. They are out of focus. I tell them that if I am going to succeed, I need them to work together instead of apart. There is a presence that is unhappy, I think that its ego. It doesn't like what I am telling them. After I talk to them and they agree, I look down at my body and there is nothing there. I am nothing. The words are coming from nowhere. I come out of trance feeling almost like I did over the weekend. Pure in the moment awareness and glowing in my chest.

I went inside, walk to my computer, go to youtube, and type in "Actualize Enlightenment". Low and behold, I see a video that I had once started watching a few years ago with some guy named Leo. I instinctively click on it.  As I watch it, I feel a physical shift in my mind, the pressure subsides and moves from the front to the back of my head. And I feel even more so in the moment. It was unbelievable to me how  everything starts making sense. As I'm reading for school, I'm catching all of the subtleties in the case, I can almost see the argument developing structurally, and I'm speed reading with no voice in my head. It continues to the next day.

I get called on in constitutional law, and give a flawless answer. I was calm and collected. I felt like there was a barrier between me and the professor, I wasn't intimidated, and I felt like everything was slower. That I didn't have to answer immediately, and I was able to take a minute to think. Again, I was functioning cognitively on a much higher level the whole day. When I needed information it just popped into my head. Like it was just offered up for me to consider. It felt like "flow" - I think a humanist concept.

This feeling of awareness has come and gone, but is generally stable now. I have had numerous insights that seem to make my deep interests in psychology and physics unify into one amazing idea. I'm not going to go into those, because they are for each person to discover, but it has been a powerful occurrence in my life. For my entire life, some force has been driving me to learn about them, and have been grooming me to make this realization.

I wrote this for 2 reasons:

1) I needed to share it. I think there is a lot to learn from it especially by people striving to reach a result with their enlightenment experience. You will notice that a lot of my experiences are somewhat different than what Buddhist doctrine says will happen. I mention this because It is important to remember that Buddhism is a concept.  It is there to guide, but at the end of the day, this work is all about you. It is good to have a map, but if you are doing this stuff for the right reasons, you will find your way. The funny thing that you realize about Buddhism, is that the way it is set up is actually hilariously designed to trick ego into awakening. All of the paradoxes make sense after awakening, and there is more wisdom squeezed into the doctrine than you can ever fully realize. This is one of many things that all of the sudden makes sense to me and humbles me to the bone. It is the most beautifully deceptive concept that has ever been devised, and I love it for that reason.

 I don't claim to be enlightened. I actually feel like I know nothing, and it will be a lifelong process to pull every bit of understanding out of reality. The thing is though, I realized early on that my mind has always known this stuff. Most of the transition happened naturally prior to researching it.  If you find yourself extremely interested in ego death, awakening, enlightenment, spirituality, or anything related to this, I'm going to go ahead and say that your mind knows as well. Allow yourself to accept it and be persistent in finding what works for you by devouring information, but more importantly, find your own path. There is an internal teacher that will appear if you open you heart and mind to Truth. Don't get bogged down in concepts and doctrines. You create your reality, and therefore there can literally be no objective singular path. Use your intuition.

2)Some times you need an external teacher. Leo provided and continues to provide this function for me as I pull every ounce of meaning from his videos on subsequent rewatches after I have an insight. So really and truly to Leo, thank you for showing me a fundamental truth. I don't know how I could ever repay someone giving me infinity. I do however know that you know the magnitude of this realization, and take solace in that at least. Your kick you in the ass style is what I needed, and you have changed my life in ways I cant put into words. You have done something that has added significant value to the world and the greater mind.

I could write on this subject for days, but the point is: When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Don't overlook the fact that  the original teacher is the student himself. If you are unwilling to teach yourself initially, then an external teacher does nothing.

 

Finally, I will share another teacher that has appeared recently to me: trinfinityacademy.com   Its a free enlightenment course that has some useful practices to help move along.

[Gopackgo]

The irony of the quote about the teacher - I think that no one knows its origin.

The quote comes from no one. I find that to be hilarious.

 

[Guest Annetta]

@Gopackgo The first thing that stood out to me is that you have an interest in quantum physics and at this point in time I am just happening to be looking into quantum physics to broaden my understanding of reality and of 'flow'.  Do you have any advice for a beginner?  What would I need to learn about first to lead up to understanding how this works?  Read a bit about it, and it is kind of over my head. 

[Gopackgo]

You don't need to learn anything. It just serves to open your mind. There are a few good books because it is a complicated subject. A brief history of time by steven hawking is a good one. Another one is an elegant universe. There are also so many videos on youtube (look at the double slit experiment). The funny thing is that you can actually understand it the best from direct experience in meditation. The Buddha unified physics 2500 years ago. There is some danger to the information because it is a bunch of concepts. i.e. simulation theory - which is basically a bunch of scientists that are fairly certain that we are living in a computer simulation. The obvious issue with that is that it doesn't explain what created the programmers. It may be a true theory, I don't know, but it certainly feels like its the result of humans applying a human invention to explain a phenomena that is pretty much unexplainable. It's basically the same thing a scientist will criticize a religious person for. They do this because they are so close minded to divinity that they can't accept that it may be a simpler answer (Occam's Razor). The basis of it is that a physicist found computer code by looking at ancient art and doing experiments and finding a specific computer code on the smallest level of atoms. It's an egoic theory because it assumes that the findings must be a result of super computers made by humans in the future. The thing is that maybe programmers in our reality just naturally found the way reality is put together when they were creating their own digital realities here (if that makes sense). The argument is built on the assumption that there cant be a divine force.

Point is, look inward, and use external sources to open your mind. It's very difficult not to use the concepts to entrench yourself in beliefs. I've always been an advocate of expanding your mind as much as possible, so I think in the long run all learning is beneficial. Just keep an eye on it because I know that it affected me. I still read about it, but just kind of an fyi.  

 

Edited March 2, 2017 by Gopackgo

[Guest Annetta]

@Gopackgo Thanks dude!  I happen to have that Stephen Hawking book, I'll take a look at it.  Has anyone enlightened (who is also a scientist, someone known in the field) ever studied quantum physics and offered their perspective??  I would be interested to hear their points of view on the subject.

Edited March 2, 2017 by Whywolf

[Gopackgo]

Funny that you mention it, look up Michio Kaku. That guy gets it.

[Guest Annetta]

@Gopackgo I noticed he had some stuff on youtube, I'll check him out.  Have an unread Future of the Mind sitting around somewhere...

[Gopackgo]

yea, I wish i had more time to read that stuff. In my free time I'm reading Eckhardt Tolle's awakening book, then I'll probably read Siddhartha again, but right this second I'm reading my Criminal Law textbook, then ill be reading my property book until about midnight. Haha. There's always somehow time to read stuff more interesting things though.

Also I'm reading a great book called Open Secret by Wei Wu Wei. Its an incredible book about nonduality.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Gopackgo

[Guest Annetta]

@I_Like_Thing I'm not familiar with Michio Kaku - is his work unreliable? - there's a joke somewhere hidden from me within this discussion?  What is it?

[Gopackgo]

I just found Kaku recently. I want to see more of what he's about. He's said some things that have intrigued me, and it's definitely never a bad thing to hear different view points. I think that physics and consciousness should be studied together considering the observer effect. I'm still in law school, I sabotaged myself last semester with constant anxiety, but I'm not concerned. If it doesn't work out, then it doesn't work out. I don't really have any desire to work at a large firm. My dad has been a lobbyist my whole life, I could see myself working for a cause like that or about 1000 different things with my degree. I really like how it is teaching me to process information.

[Gopackgo]

 

1 hour ago, I_Like_Thing said:

Sorry, bro, I thought you were goofing because Michio Kaku is a physicist in the same way Captain Kangeroo is a captain. Even for beginners I don't think he could be recommended with a straight face. If you like his style, I'd recommend Bill Nye the science guy before Kaku. Nye is an engineer, but still knows more about physics than Kaku. 

Why? 

Either way, if you happen to know of a physicist who is doing work with consciousness, I'd love to know who they are. I haven't really looked into that yet. I always end up finding simulation theory. A lot of my interest in merging the concepts is brand new to me since awakening. So please let me know if you can point me in the right direction.

Edited March 3, 2017 by Gopackgo

[Gopackgo]

I went to Texas State, where I graduated with a 3.8 with a psychology degree and sociology minor (i thought I wanted to be a professor, but changed my mind in my sr year and decided I wanted to go to law school). Then I worked at the Texas Capitol on a committee for a legislative session. After that I followed my wife to San Antonio while she got her law degree. I worked as a paralegal in family law for 2 years while in San Antonio. I did perfectly average on the lsat, I got a 155. Now I'm attending the University of Houston Law Center.

I don't really understand your reaction to my post. I basically told some of the most personal experiences of my life in order to make the point that the path to awakening has to be about the person seeking, so that it might help people understand the feeling of no anxiety and no thought. Then I thanked Leo from the bottom of my heart for the help he gave me in understanding who I am, and replied to someone with my subjective view. That was not an easy post for me to put into a public forum, especially considering that I spent a good week after awakening thinking that I was insane (as specified above). It has been one of the most powerful and emotional experiences of my life.

I think you are misunderstanding what I am saying. I think that a merger of Psychological research and Physics research would yield some cool results, given the double slit experiment and some insights I have recently experienced. I saw that Kuko was doing something along those lines, and I think that would be very interesting. From what I knew prior to your comments, he graduated from Harvard and is a professor at NYU. I have no reason to know about his reputation in depth because I'm not a physics expert. Maybe you don't like him for this reason exactly? It just seems like an odd reaction for a forum on spiritual enlightenment. Fortunately, I'm not too concerned about it other than being curious about what exactly triggered the response.

[PureExp]

6 hours ago, Gopackgo said:

The obvious issue with that is that it doesn't explain what created the programmers.

Yes, its nonsense actually, there is no evidence of programmers, not human nor aliens

Its a materialist view, which leaves out consciousness, so it is necessarily wrong.

However, that is only one view out of several. The simulation theory holds. The answer I like is - Consciousness is the creator, it simulates everything in itself. Reality (Physical or non-physical) is consciousness, and consciousness is reality.

This is ancient teaching, and it is my own experience, which is ever present, right here, right now. I'm sure it is the experience of many of forum readers here. Consciousness is the creator. Also, I highly recommend reading/watching Tom Campbell and his MybigToe Theory. All the answers are there. 

[Arman]

8 hours ago, Whywolf said:

@Gopackgo Thanks dude!  I happen to have that Stephen Hawking book, I'll take a look at it.  Has anyone enlightened (who is also a scientist, someone known in the field) ever studied quantum physics and offered their perspective??  I would be interested to hear their points of view on the subject.

Check out Thomas Campbell. He has lots of talks and lectures on youtube - he is also author of the book/trilogy 'My Big Toe' (Theory of everything). He'll be right up your alley if you have the sufficient passion and patience.  

 

 

Edited March 3, 2017 by Arman

[Gopackgo]

10 hours ago, PureExp said:

However, that is only one view out of several. The simulation theory holds. The answer I like is - Consciousness is the creator, it simulates everything in itself. Reality (Physical or non-physical) is consciousness, and consciousness is reality.

This is what my mind is telling me. I haven't fully experienced it, but in class a lot of times, I feel like things are 2-D and don't have depth. The space between things seems to flatten. That's kind of where I am as far as developing. I have read 100 theories about it, but now I kind of read everything with separation and try not to get attached to what I haven't experienced. From what  have experienced, I will have an intuition that something is the case, and then at some point, the answer will hit me over the head. I have a strong intuition that this is the case based on the fact that awareness is infinite and external from my body, and awareness is me, but still, right now its a thought not an experience.

@Arman  Thank you for this. Sometimes youtube can be a crap shoot. I'm tired of seeing the "10 signs of an awakening" videos in my feed when I am searching for things like this. The algorithm has me all confused. Youtube could do a better job of organizing itself. I will definitely check it out. This is the first time in history that I can read ancient Buddhist texts and cutting edge physics/science, and have them more or less go hand in hand. Its a little dangerous because it makes me feel like I'm right because of science. That is exactly the thought process that got me in trouble before.

@I_Like_Thing  I understand, it can be frustrating because people will get on these discussions and either make fun, seek attention, or put out information that misleads people. You were just trying to protect people from that, and that is not a farfetched response considering I am brand new here. I am happy you pointed that out about Kaku, because I think I was seeing something I wanted to see instead of whats actually there. 

I wish Texas was like that. Here there is no such process. Instead you have to go to law school and basically learn how to make policy arguments/theory. Now I understand that when my classmates are airing their political views in class, I'm better served in reading my book and thinking of how I would argue the issues. After getting my grades last semester, I would say that's what began this entire process for me. I had the presence of mind to think "I can either respond to this situation how I always have, or I can accept that I need to re-evaluate how I am processing the world at large. Of course that lead me to all the delusional thinking that came from stress/anxiety, and eventually ego. I didn't really even look into enlightenment until after I had my awakening. It was almost purely natural, I just thought that I might be going insane or something. Now I know that I was becoming more sane. 

The good thing about law school though, is that sitting in class makes it easy to be awareness of the world around me. That keeps me out of thought, which allows me to actually hear what is being said instead of what I want to hear. I have had a lot of insights in class, and some pretty crazy experiences were I feel like my body is operating automatically before I am directing it to do things. Right now it is simple things like turning my head/where I'm looking, but I think that I got a real glimpse of that in the part in my op where I was in con law. That was so strange, but awesome.

[cetus]

19 hours ago, Whywolf said:

 Has anyone enlightened (who is also a scientist, someone known in the field) ever studied quantum physics and offered their perspective??  

http://www.gci.org.uk/Documents/DavidBohm-WholenessAndTheImplicateOrder.pdf

[Gopackgo]

@I_Like_Thing  Thank you. The thing is that all of my life, I have had a creative mind, but as you probably know, a lot of creative ideas are shut down in this world when they fall outside of the bounds of what most people consider to be feasible. I was also very empathetic as a child, and basically learned that being that way caused me pain because others just didn't understand why it mattered so much to me. I tried to shut both things off, and the result was creating a left brained reality that was not me. I have essentially gone the other way now. I do what I feel I need to do regardless of what the rational mind tells me. You know how law school it: "if you get bad grades your first semester, you will never find a job", "if you dont start applying in January for summer jobs, you will never find one" "Outlining is the only way to study if you don't want to fail". Basically, there are all these assumptions that people think control their life in objective reality. Really, a lot of this is bullshit, and only serves to make people unhappy about themselves when they act in noncompliance with these "truths". I'm trying to realign my thinking back to what it was before where I decide what I need to do based on what I feel I need to do, and not based on external assumptions. A large part of this right now for me is unlocking the mind to give myself permission to run how it naturally is instead of accepting these assumptions and stressing over the incompatibilities.

@Arman That was an excellent explanation, thank you so much. I keep wondering about this: If they are sating that there is a probability based on previous experience, then wouldn't the test itself be a result of previous belief? I.E. If they are saying that we are sent data based on a number of factors, one of which is the subjective views of the perceiver, then the experiment itself is useless because it is a creation of previous beliefs and the person running them. If so, the whole idea of reading a study and then replicating it (the basis of science) is fundamentally flawed by expectation. I don't know if that makes sense, its hard to put into words what I'm saying.