The Best Mix For Enlightenment

By Leo Gura - July 2, 2017

I’m finding that the best way to move quickly towards enlightenment is through a combination of 1) meditation/concentration, and 2) contemplation/self-inquiry practices. Both are important, otherwise you’ll likely get stuck. Most teachers fail to convey this to students. They either emphasize concentration too much, or contemplation too much.

If you over-train concentration or meditation, you will get pleasant states of mind, but no deep, lasting insight. If you over-train contemplation or self-inquiry, you will just get stuck in your mind with no idea how to break through.

If you’ve been doing lots of concentration/meditation practices, but little self-inquiry, dial back the meditation and do much more self-inquiry.

If you’ve been doing lots of contemplation/self-inquiry, but little concentration or meditation, dial back the self-inquiry and do much more focused meditation.

These days people generally have such poor concentration skills that I believe most people are unable to do self-inquiry effectively simply because they cannot sit and focus for even 1 minute.

Aside:

Do not underestimate this point about concentration! What most modern spiritual aspirants don’t realize is that most non-duality teachers teaching today are from a generation long past. They grew up before the age of color TV, CGI movies, 3D animated cartoons, Legos, cable TV, PCs, 3D graphics cards, surround sound, internet, email, blogs, XM radio, online shopping, video games, MMORPGs, eBay, Youtube, Netflix, Amazon, Game of Thrones, stand-up comedy, opinionated political news, smart phones, Kindles, iPads, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, text messaging, Tinder, free streaming HD porn, life-like sex toys, modern fast food, energy drinks, targeted advertising, 4k displays, 3D movies, VR/AR, and smart watches.

This is a BIG deal! It was much easier to focus back then because they were not imprinted from birth with distractions the way we are today. If you’re under 40 now, your generation will have a much harder time getting enlightened. So you have to make extra effort to learn to concentrate. And the newest generation — those 5 year old kids you see in restaurants and airplanes glued to their iPads — will find enlightenment ridiculously challenging. And the future generation of kids who grow up on virtual reality goggles will be totally screwed. They won’t even know how someone can sit still for 30 minutes without being hooked into a machine. They will be addicted from cradle to grave and not even know it.

If months are flying by and you keep feeling stuck with your practice, swing your pendulum to the opposite end (concentration or self-inquiry). Stay there for a few months, then swing back, and you should notice a lot more traction and clarity with where you left off.

Either way, both skills are vital to your ultimate well-being. So it’s worth training them both up. You will find enormous benefits and auxiliary uses for both these skills for the rest of your life.

Add Indian yoga and an all-fruit/vegetable, no wheat/diary diet to this mix for super-charged results.

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