Spiritual Enlightenment - Intro

By Leo Gura - February 9, 2015 | 398 Comments

The most SHOCKING truth you’ll ever hear!

Video Transcript

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Hey, this is Leo for Actualized.org, and in this video I want to talk about the most advanced, most profound, most important and most challenging concept that I have discovered in all of my personal development research, and that is spiritual enlightenment.

Warning — this video will cause you emotional distress, including anger, depression and confusion.

There is a profound truth that virtually no human beings on the planet understand. This includes you. This includes humanity, society and science at large. This truth is so rarely known that, just to give you an idea, out of the 7 billion people who live on Earth, on this planet, we don’t know for certain, but we can estimate that perhaps 10 thousand of these 7 billion understand this truth.

The rest do not. They are completely clueless to it. What is worst of all is that this truth is fundamental to your happiness and emotional well-being in life. This is not some abstract philosophical truth. This is a very practical, most important and most profound truth that you can understand as a human being. The problem is that this truth is also extremely nuanced and delicate.

To understand this truth takes something really extraordinary of yourself. It takes extraordinary open mindedness, extraordinary self-honesty and extraordinary commitment to the path to discover this truth. This truth is not discovered through a simple video or reading a book.

It takes a lot more than that. In this video, I am going to put you on the track towards this truth. This video will not give you the truth. It will tell you about the truth and how you can undertake a journey to discover this truth for yourself, if you should choose to do it.

I want to start off by giving you a sense of what I mean by the need for open mindedness in this investigation and what I also mean by nuanced truths. Because as we go through society, as we are raised and go to school and go to college, we’re off in the business world, all these places don’t teach us to deal with nuanced truths very well.

Even if you are an intellectually rigorous person, you went to a university and you did research there, that is still not going to be sufficient to do this investigation. What we’re going to show you here is this. I will show you an experiment right now that’s going to help to open your mind to the possibility that there could be something that’s true, right before your eyes, right under your nose, but yet you’re not seeing it.

So, this truth we are talking about, it’s not going to be some hidden dragon, mystical unicorn or some deity out there somewhere that you are never going to get to see. It’s right before your eyes. You can see it right now, except you’re not aware of it because you haven’t developed your psyche far enough along so that you can see it.

Now, it’s not immediately clear that this is even possible, that something could be so obviously there, but then you’re not able to register it. So, to give you a taste of that, I want to show you an optical illusion to start to open up your mind. In a second here, this screen is going to change.

What I want you to do is when the screen changes, you are going to press the pause button and then you’re going to look at this optical illusion. Here are the instructions for what you are going to do. You are going to put your face up towards the screen, not too close, maybe a foot or two away from the screen.

You are going to focus your eyes. Hold your head steady. Focus your eyes on a little dot right at the center of the screen. There is going to be a little dot. You are going to focus on it, and you are going to keep looking at it.

Just look at it, and look at it, and look it. Hold your head straight and see what happens. What’s going to happen is an interesting phenomenon with your visual awareness. I am not going to spoil the surprise, so go ahead and do that right now. Then, we will talk about it when you come back.

This is not what spiritual enlightenment is, but it’s a little bit of like an analogy of what it might feel like to experience spiritual enlightenment, in the sense that there could be something right there that appears one way to you under certain circumstances, in a totally different way under slightly different circumstances.

This is in fact so, even though the facts of the situation haven’t really changed. That’s what this truth is. It is the truth that’s kind of hidden out in the open. It is hidden in the open so much that when you find out and discover the truth for yourself, it’s going to shock you just how obvious it was the whole time and how obvious it should be to everybody else, and yet nobody knows about it.

Uncommunicated Truth

As a possibility, I want you to consider that a truth can exist that cannot be communicated. Can you open your mind to this possibility? This is very important, for you to be able to understand what we are talking about in this video. A truth can exist that cannot be communicated.

Think about that. Why would that be the case if that could be possible? How could that be the case? Well, our communication is a system after all. This system has to function in certain ways. Could it be that this system functions in certain ways that produce blind spots as we’re communicating?

By the way, communication also involves thinking. Sometimes, people think that thinking is separate from communication. Actually, these two things are very closely related because, in your own mind, you communicate with yourself all the time.

The way in which you think is basically a form of self-communication. We’re including communication and thinking together here. Imagine this communication, plus you’re thinking in just the way that it was built and designed that it can produce blind spots.

If you’re not aware that these blind spots can exist within the way that you communicate, within language and within the system of thinking and logic itself, then you might not see things that are right there and really obvious. Could that be possible, just in theory? Can you allow that to be a possibility?

Also, consider this additionally. What if your psyche, your very psyche and how you rationalize and think about the world, what if this system was also designed in such a way that, just to get it up and running, it had to be based on certain assumptions and certain mechanisms?

These mechanisms and assumptions also produce blind spots for your psyche to exist at all in the first place, for there to even be a psyche, because what is a psyche? A psyche is not a simple thing. We might look out into the world and we might say a tree is a simple thing.

A rock is a simple thing, but a psyche – what is a psyche? We don’t even know if this is a physical object. Consider that this thing we call a psyche, for it to even exist, it might have to be founded on something that is fictional and that is not true.

Can you open your mind to that possibility? Good! We are going to continue building on this. I am going to tell you exactly what spiritual enlightenment is, in a very clear—cut way. I’m not going to beat around the bush. Before we get to the actual meat and before I tell you, I want to set up your mind so that you can understand this truth.

Like I said, this truth is so delicate and so subtle that it’s very easy to misunderstand it. The first thing I want to say is that this video is designed for rational people. If you consider yourself a rational, scientifically minded, serious and intellectually rigorous person, that’s perfect.

That is how I was before I discovered this truth. Early in my adulthood, I spent a lot of my time discovering and researching what is the actual truth. How do I get to the bottom of things, and not just believing what people tell me?

This meant thinking independently for myself and really doing serious research to discover this, not taking it for granted that we already know what the truth is. So, that’s good. This video is not for New Age, hippie and dogmatic people.

There isn’t going to be any New Age stuff in this video. There aren’t going to be any hippie notions. There isn’t going to be any dogma. There isn’t going to be any mysticism. We are not going to be talking about Gods, philosophies, conspiracy theories, deities, mythology or religion.

All of that is going out the window here. If you don’t like that stuff, great! In this video, what I am going to help you to do is I want to help you to start an empirical investigation into this truth yourself, because this truth can only be discovered through a personal empirical investigation.

You have to start doing the research, doing the looking and finding the facts for yourself, generating your own proof. Remember, if this truth is actually incommunicable, it cannot be communicated. That means that I can’t give it to you, nor can teachers, professor or a spiritual guru.

You have to find it for yourself. This empirical investigation is going to be very important. What I mean by empirical is that you’re going to be using your own faculties, the things that you know the best. You will be using your own sight, sound, feelings and emotions, your own consciousness and your own thoughts. You will be using all of this to discover this truth for yourself.

You’re not going to have to rely on other people telling you things. You’re not going to have to believe people. Another thing you should understand is that this investigation that you will be doing is going to be very different, radically different than anything you’ve ever done in your life, even if you’ve done scientific research before and even if you come from a university background or whatever your background might be.

This is a very different investigation than you are used to. If you are a spiritual person, this is different than any kind of investigation you’ve done in your spiritual work as well. Be open minded that you can be using a process here that is different and something that you’re not comfortable with using.

That’s okay. You’re going to have to learn along the way. Here are a couple of things you are going to need to make this journey successfully, even to begin the journey and to just understand what I am going to tell you in this video. You are going to need these things – open mindedness to the ultimate degree, complete open mindedness and the ability to embrace paradox.

That means if something is paradoxical or contradictory to you, after I say it, you need to be comfortable with holding that paradox and embracing it for potentially a long period of time, not just hours and days, but potentially months and years. Can you embrace a paradox for years, before you’re able to get it to resolve?

It will resolve in the end, but it’s going to take patience with you and from you. It’s going to take a willingness to want it to resolve. You are going to have to work for it. The third thing you are going to need is a desire for Truth. That is truth with a capital T.

You’re going to have to really want to know what the truth is, not because it serves you, it’s pleasant, interesting or because you can come up with some theory and you can now justify certain actions that you do in your life with this truth, but simply for the sake of knowing the truth itself.

The fourth thing you are going to need is that you are going to have to be completely objective as you do this investigation and as you listen to me as well. You will also need a healthy dose of skepticism here too. Be skeptical about things I’m telling you, but also be skeptical about the things your mind is telling you because while I’m talking, your mind is talking.

You have a tendency to be biased towards what your mind is telling you. That’s the whole danger of discovering this truth. It’s very tricky because your mind is going to play games with you, to prevent you from seeing it. I’ll talk more about that a little bit later.

The Truth Will Scare You

This truth is going to scare the shit out of you. That’s not an exaggeration. It is also going to confuse you. It’s going to confuse you, especially if you’ve been following some of my other videos, the more normal videos that I do on personal development topics.

It is going to confuse you. It is going to confuse you if you are a religious person. It is going to confuse you if you are a scientific person. It doesn’t matter who you are. It’s going to confuse you. It does not matter who you are, but it is going to scare the shit out of you.

It’s going to emotionally disturb you. Why is this the case? It is necessarily the case because this is how the psyche protects itself and protects its own structure. To discover this truth, we really need to break down the structure of the psyche, which is not a comfortable thing for most people.

If you’re a Christian, Muslim, Buddhist or a spiritual person, the things I’m telling you in this video, if you actually take them seriously, will crush your models of reality. They will crush you. If you’re an atheist, scientist, academic or Agnostic, you will also be crushed by the things I’m telling you.

Why is this so? Because the models you’ve built up over your entire lifetime, no matter how true you feel that they are, we are going to be challenging these models here. These models are built on somebody’s assumptions that we are already questioning, and you do not like questioning these assumptions.

The end result of this journey will be the dissolution of your models of reality. If that doesn’t sound scary, trust me, it will be when you start doing it and feeling it in practice. However, also realize that when you are feeling this fear, you have to be very self-honest and ask yourself – why is there fear here?

Why do I fear going in this direction? Why do I fear doing this investigation? After all, I’m doing it very objectively and honestly, yet they’re so much fear there. What is the psyche hiding? You have a very firm mental model of who you think you are, you, as an entity in this life.

You have assumptions that you’ve made about yourself that you have never really questioned. What we’re doing in this video is we want to challenge some of those assumptions and start to question some of those. You need to be open to question this stuff.

If you’re closed to that, then you might as well turn off the video. The problem is this. When you say to yourself and you say to me – “Yes Leo, I want to do this investigation, it sounds interesting, let me do it.” The problem is that you don’t appreciate just how psychologically tricky your psyche is going to be here.

You are going to be psychologically manipulated and sabotaged by your psyche to prevent you from seeing this truth. Now, you might wonder why that is the case. It sounds very nefarious, almost like a conspiracy theory. We’ll talk more about that as we continue.

For now though, what I want you to do as I am about to tell you the truth, I’m getting to the truth and I’m going to tell it to you right now, point blank, is I want you to watch extremely carefully for an emotional reaction in you.

Your psyche will produce an emotional reaction right now. I want you to watch for it. I want you to just observe it. Don’t react; just observe your emotional reactions. So, here’s the truth.

To get you to really understand it, we need to get your mind around what we mean by the concept of you. When I talk about you in this video, I want you to be very clear about what we mean by you.

The Truth – There Is No You In Reality

Right now, I want you to stop everything that you’re doing. Focus right now on what I’m saying. I want you to get really comfortable in your seat. Relax; get your back up straight. I want you to close your eyes right now, as I’m speaking, and follow along.

Now, what I want you to do is I want you to get in touch, as your eyes are closed, with the present moment. Feel yourself breathing gently, in and out. Feel those sensations in your body that you really were not aware of before, such as the pressure of your butt on the seat and the pressure on your feet.

Feel your hands. Get in touch with the present moment. Also notice that there are thoughts. There is like an inner dialogue that is happening inside your mind. It might be saying any kind of random thing. Notice that there’s a thinking going on inside.

Notice that there’s awareness inside of you, an awareness of life and awareness of being and existing, of living and all these feelings, even the colors that you see through your closed eyelids. Notice that.

Now, what I’d like you to do is I want you to get in touch with YOU, who you know that you are, the most true thing that you know about yourself, which is that you exist. Get in touch with the evidence of your existence. Maybe you think it’s your thoughts, the thoughts that are being thought or the feeling in your body.

Maybe you say your name, whatever your name is. You can say it. That is me. Maybe you can think of some memories from your past, which are you. Most fundamentally, who you believe that you are is this thing that’s experiencing life, right? You are like at the center of life. Life is happening to you.

It’s your life. You own this life. Get in touch with that right now. Get in touch with it. You got it? You got that sense? Okay, now – the truth. Keep your eyes closed. Focus on that.

Focus on that feeling. The truth that I’m going to tell you here, the truth is that there is no such thing as YOU in reality. What you’re feeling right now is an illusion and that does not exist in physical reality. That thing that you think you are, that feels most true about life, is in fact false.

Go ahead and open your eyes. So, that is the truth. It is a very simple truth. The problems are these. A – You cannot believe this is true. That doesn’t sound plausible to you. B – Even if you do believe it, the problem is you don’t actually have an experience of it. You just have a belief, even if you took what I just said, on my word.

Let’s continue working with this truth because there’s some more stuff I need to tell you about it. Let me give you another taste of what we mean by you. I’m pointing at you right now. In your mind, you are registering this, that I am pointing at you and I’m talking to you. I’ve been talking to you this whole video. That YOU I’ve been talking to, we’re saying that YOU doesn’t exist.

Not theoretically, not philosophically, not poetically or not figuratively, but literally and physically. Everything that I am saying here is literal. I want you to register this, what I’m telling you. I want you to open mindedly register it as a truth.

Remember, also watch for that emotional reaction. Keep watching for that emotional reaction. I am going to talk about that a bit later. Let’s now continue. I want you to take your hand. Put your hand in front of you so that you’re looking at your hand.

I want you to look at your hand and I want you to notice and register it in your mind and ask yourself who is looking at this hand. Get in touch with the feeling that you, some sort of entity which we call you, is looking at this hand and seeing this hand.

This hand is being seen by someone. Have you got that feeling, that you’re seeing this hand? Good! The truth is that you’re not seeing this hand. There is no entity looking at this hand or seeing this hand. This is a pretty freaky and mind melting notion.

It is hard to even understand how this could be possible. Let me start elaborating a little bit. What we mean here is that who you think you are, this entity experiencing life, also the body, the mind and thoughts, you think about all this as you. That sense of this is myself. This is a personal cell owning life. That’s an illusion.

This doesn’t mean that the body doesn’t exist. The body clearly exists and reality clearly exists, but your notion of ownership over this reality, over this body and over your thoughts doesn’t exist. That’s a fiction.

Also, you believe that you are a perceiver, that you are something perceiving objects. So, we have this kind of model that we use. We basically assume about life that there are agents in life and then there are objects. Agents can perceive objects.

Conscious beings, like animals and humans can supposedly look at the world and see things and then other things can’t see anything. We think that we are these entities that are seeing stuff. We call ourselves perceivers. We call our perceptions perceptions.

Well, what we are saying here is that there is no perceiver. You then might wonder what is there. There is simply perception itself, without a perceiver. The hand that you’re looking – look at your hand again – this hand is real. It’s a hand.

We are saying that it’s not your hand. It’s just a hand, no different than any other hand. It’s just a hand, not yours. Moreover, no one is seeing this hand. The hand simply exists as a perception, what you would call a perception. It just exists as a perception, without a perceiver of it.

The feeling that you have, that you perceive it, is an illusory feeling. You can come into a realization that, in fact, it is not the case. You can come into realization that you are not a perceiver. What you currently believe that you are, what you think you are right now, is that you think that you’re a body and this physical entity.

Actually, what you really are, without knowing it, is that you are a thought, not a physical entity. That’s who you currently believe you are. There is kind of the false self and the true self. The false self is who you currently believe you are.

If you think that you’re the body or the one perceiving things, then that is actually not a physical entity, but a thought which is telling you who you are, this physical body. This thought is false. This is the very core of spiritual enlightenment. It is this truth.

There are also a few other corollaries to this that I want to mention and some details that I want to fill in. I want to tell you exactly what spiritual enlightenment is. When people say spiritual enlightenment, a lot of them are confused. The ones that actually know and who have experienced it, this is what they mean.

The Meanings of Spiritual Enlightenment

Firstly, they mean that who you think you are right now is a thought, not a physical entity. Secondly, what they mean is that you are not the body or the mind. Of course, immediately the question comes up – but then, if that’s the case what actually am I? That is the truth that can’t be communicated.

You have to actually experience it for yourself to know. But, we can say some things about it to give you a little bit of a sense, like a story about it. So, I will talk about it a little bit. The truth is that there is no you perceiving anything. Reality simply exists and that is the end of it. There’s no need for a perceiver of reality, which we assumed that we need.

Actually, that’s not necessary. Also, it’s the notion that we have about matter. We think about it that there are perceptions, colors and tastes, but there’s also like hard physical matter. Well, this distinction is a false distinction too because what we call matter doesn’t actually exist.

In reality, what we call matter is a conceptualization by us. What exists in reality is actually a field of awareness. So, what you call matter is actually a field of awareness. In this field of awareness you will say – “Okay, I can kind of buy that notion maybe, but then isn’t this field of awareness localized within me? Isn’t it me who’s aware of the world?”

What we are saying here is no. That’s an illusion too. The field of awareness that is reality is a non-localized field of awareness. Think of reality being self-aware, like every bit and pixel of reality.

If we can see that reality is composed of bits and pixels, then every bit and pixel is self-aware, whatever that might mean. That is very core to spiritual enlightenment. Another thing about spiritual enlightenment is that it means that life is totally impersonal.

There’s nothing personal about life, which means that everything that you take personally about your life is an illusion. In fact, life is completely neutral and completely impersonal. Even your very body is impersonal. Even your thoughts, your very thoughts about you, are impersonal.

The other thing spiritual enlightenment means is that all thoughts and all beliefs, no matter whether they’re religious, spiritual, scientific or everyday beliefs, are all just stories. They’re not reality and they’re not truth-telling. They are just stories.

They are stories about reality, but not reality itself. They don’t carry truth about reality, even though we believe that they do. Another aspect of spiritual enlightenment, which is really cool, is that because the you is an illusion and it doesn’t actually exist, mortality becomes irrelevant.

You are not the body. Sure, the body is going to decay and die. You can’t really prevent that. At least, at this point of our technological advancement, we can’t prevent that, but the body is not you. When you dis-identify with the body, you’re not going to be really too attached to what happens to it in the end.

Another important facet of spiritual enlightenment is that there is no free will. By free will, we’re not talking about philosophical concepts of free will. We mean very practically. So, the control that you believe you have over your life, all the decisions you think you make, even the motions you make with your body and your hands, even the blinking of your eyes, the thinking of your thoughts and the talking of your mouth, is all done without any input from you.

Even though it feels like there is input from you, that you have control over these things and that you consciously dictate and direct the stuff, it is actually a part of the illusion as well. When the self and the you go, the free will goes. Also, this means that all the fear, all the suffering, all the emotional distress that you have had in your life and all the problems you have in your life, are all fake.

Your entire life is a pathetic excuse, basically. It’s a pathetic escape from your true nature, from ever discovering true nature, because this is how your psyche is inherently and necessarily constructed. Your psyche cannot be constructed otherwise. It has to be constructed this way to currently sustain the way that you live.

Also, this means that all religions, all philosophies, all schools of thought, whatever they are, whether you think they are scientific and rational or irrational, are all just stories. They’re not true. They’re just stories. Another important facet of spiritual enlightenment is the thing that we’re talking about. What is spiritual enlightenment itself?

It’s an insight that you have. It is an insight into the truth of reality. That’s what it is. This insight happens in a split second. It happens in a split second, when you have it. Technically, it’s not even a you having it, considering there is no you to have the insight. The insight simply happens.

It’s important to not mistake this with an emotional state or a high of some sort. This is not some sort of a drug induced high, nor is it an emotional state that you pop into and then pop out of. It’s not a meditation high or whatever else you might think about it. It’s the truth. The truth exists always, so this is a permanent state of realization if you can attain it.

The real trick of it all is that it’s actually impossible. It’s impossible for you, you who you think you are right now, to understand any of this. Not really, you can get a taste of it through metaphor. I am kind of giving you metaphors here.

But, you don’t actually understand it because your psyche has to break down and dissolve to understand it. Only when the psyche dissolves and what’s left is the truth itself, then you understand it. It is not about just really understanding it. It is just a being of the truth itself.

When you get rid of your you, what does that leave? That only leaves reality, raw reality, no more separation, no more thoughts, no more theories, no more models, none of that stuff – just raw reality. You are it. You are the raw reality.

We were talking about the false you. The true you is actually very paradoxically nothing. You are nothing, and you are also simultaneously everything, nothing and everything. This is hard to understand. It’s impossible to understand without experiencing it.

Nevertheless, this is what it is, a fact. Everything I am telling you here is not a theory. It’s an observable fact. You don’t have to have faith in it. You don’t have to believe in it. In fact, you can’t believe in it.

You want to believe in it, but that is going to prevent you from seeing it. You have to actually see it for yourself. So, it’s an observable fact which means it can be discovered through this empirical investigation that we talked about.

Another interesting wrinkle is that all “spiritual” – I use the word with quotes, I don’t really like that word – all “spiritual” stories from the Bible, from various religious texts from the East and the West and from mystics, point to this fact right here. Except, what they do is they cover it up with a bunch of nonsense, a bunch of stories and a bunch of metaphor which makes it very confusing.

But, what I am really trying to do here is to lay it out very strictly for you, because this is what actually helps you to see it. It is a very dry fact about reality. There are no gods, unicorns, deities, heaven and hell. Reality is exactly what it appears to be, without any addition of you to it. This means that we have to subtract you from it for you to see it.

Understand And Confront The Truth

At this point, what I want to do is I want to pause. I want you to actually soak it in and take in everything I said. Drink it all in and notice your emotional reactions right now, as I’ve been laying all this on you. What are your emotional reactions? What’s your mind doing? Is it getting upset? Is it getting frustrated and angry?

Is it getting stubborn and confused? Is it getting excited? Is it having an “aha” moment? Is it getting sad? Is it getting depressed? What’s going on in there? Notice it and notice that it might be something very subtle and not as obvious as a major depression or a fit of anger.

It might be something very subtle, like a subtle resistance, a subtle not wanting to listen anymore and a subtle shifting away of attention and focus towards something else in your awareness.

Notice that? Just watch that reaction. Also, take in what I’m saying here. Take it in. The problem is that people hear this truth. This truth is talked about in spiritual books. The problem is that they just gloss over it. They just run through it.

They don’t actually understand what is being told to them. I want you to understand it. The way you know that you understand it is that you have an emotional reaction to it. So, make sure you had this emotional reaction. I hope you can sense it. This truth is outrageous.

What I told you is outrageous because I did not say it figuratively, like other spiritual texts tell you. I said it literally, and now you’re forced to confront it. In other spiritual texts, what you do is you read it and then you think it’s just a story and it is parable. It is just something from three thousand years ago when people were stupid.

No, confront the truth right now. It’s outrageous, right? It is outrageous. What I said is outrageous. Just notice that. Notice it. Just because it’s outrageous, it doesn’t particularly mean that it’s false.

Right now, also notice that if you have a lot of objections and counter arguments happening in your head, notice that it is happening. A voice inside your head is saying stuff about me and about these ideas. Notice that.

Also, notice what that is. Is that part of the communication system that we were talking about? Remember that I said this. What if your communication system was flawed and was designed a particular way that creates blind spots? Could it be that this communication system, which is functioning right now on overdrive and in your mind, is doing its usual thing and creating more blind spots?

Right now, a blind spot was exposed to you, but the communication system in your psyche doesn’t like seeing these things. So, at this point, you might be saying – “Okay Leo, this is very outrageous. Let’s say I give you the benefit of the doubt for a few seconds. How can I be so deceived? How come I am so deceived if this is in fact true?”

Well, what we’re saying is that this is not the Matrix. We’re not talking about the Matrix. Some people confuse this and say – “Leo, are you saying that nothing is true and I am living in a dream? Is that what you’re saying?” No, that is not what I am saying. Everything is real.

The world is real. Reality is real. Your hands are real. They’re just not your hands. It’s not your reality. It’s not your life. So, the only thing that we’re questioning here is the you at the center of it. That is what we are questioning.

It is kind of like five hundred years ago, before we understood astronomy. People believed that the Earth was the center of the whole Universe and that we were at the center of it all. Well, we still believe that we personally are the center of the Universe, right? Long ago, science has found out that we are not the center of the Universe.

We still personally believe that each one of us is at the center of the Universe with this life that we have, which turns out to be an illusion. So, that’s what we’re questioning. How can you be so deceived? I’ll tell you. Remember that voice inside your head, spinning objections and talking to me right now?

Well, the key assumption you made that everybody makes, that every human being makes on the whole planet, is that the inner voice that’s talking is truthful. Now, consider this. What if the inner voice was talking and labeling reality and it wasn’t truthful?

What if it was just arbitrary? You are just saying stuff and slapping labels on reality. We will call that thing a tree. We will call this thing a person. We will call this thing a building. We will call that thing a planet. We will call that thing the Sun. These are just random labels, just slapping labels on.

Also, use a random form of logic to connect these things together into some sort of conceptual framework. Then, it says – “Look, we’ve got reality! This is what reality is!” That is not what reality is. That is a very heavy conceptualization of reality. You’ve got reality itself and then you’ve got the voice, spinning stories about reality.

It constructs a web of concepts. Then, this web of concepts gets layered on top of reality. This happens so quickly, fluidly and outside of your awareness that you then get this hybrid and this augmented reality. We then look at it and say it is reality.

No, that is not reality. Reality is this thing that it was, before you spun all of this nonsense about it and all these stories. The stories that are spun, they are stories that are spun from our intuition, from our naïveté, from science, from religion, from philosophy and from every corner of life. Stories are being spun all the time.

You might wonder – “But Leo, aren’t certain stories more true than other stories?” Well, what’s telling you that your stories are true? See, to believe that your stories are true, you have to tell yourself my stories are true and then lie to yourself about it while you tell yourself that.

So, what a true story is isn’t actually a true story. What you call a true story is actually a story that has another story behind it that tells it that it is true. Sometimes, we take this up to very crazy degrees. You might have layer and layer and layer and layer, a dozen layers deep of story, telling you that this story is true.

It is a story backing up a story backing up a story. If you dig all the way down to the chain and you get to the very bottom of it, what you discover is that there’s no truth there at all. What you are creating in your mind is that you’re creating self-fulfilling prophecies or basically, a better way to put it and a more technical term, you’re question begging all the time.

You are creating vicious circles, vicious logical circles inside your mind. You then cleverly hide this under the rug and then you prop up your stories as truth. This is what you are doing. You have to strip away.

Take reality that you have hybridized and augmented and strip away all the thoughts. Just keep stripping away. Just keep stripping away until there is nothing left except the raw reality. Then, you get to the truth.

If you do that, you will then discover that there is no you at the center of it. It’s pretty cool. That is the fundamental explanation of how this stuff works. What I want to do is I want to get you another taste of what a spiritual enlightenment experience can feel like. I want to give you just an analogy of it.

I think that this is going to work pretty well. Another optical illusion is coming up here. You are going to do the same thing as last time. You are going to pause the video when the optical illusion comes up. You are going to look at it.

What I want you to do is you’re going to see a tridimensional cube. This cube can be looked at and seen from two different perspectives. The first time you look at it, you are going to see it from one perspective automatically. Keep looking at it. You might stare at it for 30 seconds or maybe a couple of minutes.

If it takes you that long, then that is good. What is going to happen is that you are going to see it flip. Try to see it. As you look at the cube, try to see it from the opposite perspective. What you see is that it will flip, in a second.

It will flip and then you will see it from the other orientation. This is a cool phenomenon. You have probably seen this before. It is called the Necker cube. Indulge me here and take a look at it again. Go!

What is interesting about this example, which is what I really love about it, is that it shows you that the facts of the matter in that picture stay the same. Nothing changes. What changes is your shift in perspective, right? That turns out to be a pretty significant difference.

The picture didn’t move at all, but in your mind, the picture moved. That makes all the difference in the world. You might wonder – “Well Leo, if what you are talking about is that the body is still here and the world is pretty much exactly as I see it except there is no me, is that like a semantic argument then? Are we just splitting hairs here and quibbling about words?”

Actually, no! We are not quibbling about words. Not at all, because based on this one falsehood in your consciousness and in your awareness, this creates a lot of your suffering and trauma in life. In fact, all of your suffering and trauma, which I am going to get to in a minute, is created by this.

This makes a very important practical difference in your life. It makes all the difference in the world. Just like in this cube example, you notice that it is subtle. It is not like we are saying that everything is going to change.

We are just saying that your perspective on things is going to change. In fact, I want to twist your mind a little bit more. What I want you to do now is to skip back and rewind to the cube again. I want you to look at the cube again.

This time, I want you to notice that we are in fact talking about cubes, but when you notice the picture, there is actually no cube represented in the picture at all. Can you remember that? Can you remember what the picture actually was?

If you cannot remember, go back and look. What it was is this. It was just a couple of circles with some stuff carved out of them. You were seeing the cube as a wireframe negative that your mind was projecting onto the image because your mind is really good at filling in blanks and stuff like that.

If you look at that picture very strictly, very dryly and very objectively, you will notice that there is no cube represented at all in that picture. It is a projection of your mind. I hope you can get a taste and a sense from this example that you are you, yourself and the ego. Say your name right now.

Nod your head right now. Who is nodding their head? No one is nodding your head. The head is nodding itself. It sure feels like someone is nodding your head, doesn’t it? Yes, it does, in the same sense that the cube really feels like it is there when, in fact, it is not.

If you live your whole life believing the cube is real, when it is in fact not real, and then you base your entire set of actions through life on the fact that the cube is real when it is not, you can imagine that it might create some problems, right? It might create some problems for you.

At this point, you might be wondering – “Leo, it is sounding a little bit plausible, but kind of crazy. Okay, let’s say I buy into it for a little bit. I just cannot understand how come society has not been buzzing about this? If this is true, it is so outrageous and revolutionary. How come more people are not talking about it?”

Let us address this question, because it is important. Otherwise, you are not going to even trust me here that this is even worth pursuing for you, as an investigation. Why isn’t society buzzing about this?

First of all, most people don’t know. Second of all, society is ramped on group think, conditioning, cultures and all sorts of delusions of the masses. We know that for a fact, just based on other theories and studies of social dynamics. So, group think is very ramped in society.

Third of all, you have to understand society. What do you call society? This great thing called society is actually a playground of distractions for your psyche. Do you understand this, what society actually is? Do you understand what it’s designed for?

Just like your psyche, the entire social system is designed so that the psyche is distracted from looking at what the psyche is not seeing. Do you understand that? This isn’t obvious, but when you start to see the truth and do the investigation, you start to see that all of society is like this without even knowing it.

This isn’t done in some sort of evil or nefarious way. Because people are unconscious, they behave in unconscious ways. They suck you into it too. It’s everything, buying houses, going partying, having drugs and drinks, the political and educational system and the corporate system.

It is all of this, and religions as well. Religion brings us to the fourth point. Why is society not buzzing about this? Actually, society is buzzing about this. It’s just that this is happening. The people who buzz about it and who actually know, nobody listens to them because they sound crazy, like I am right now.

Religions were originally supposed to be communicating this truth. Religions are ubiquitous around the world. The problem is that religions distort this truth so much because they don’t recognize that the truth is impossible to communicate. Yet, they try to communicate it anyway.

Over time, over thousands of years, the distortion becomes just so enormous. It becomes so enormous that it loses all touch with reality. In a sense, you could say that society is buzzing around it. That’s why people are religious.

They are just extremely confused about it. This truth is very difficult to communicate. This point needs to be appreciated. It is hard to understand that there can be a truth that cannot be communicated.

It doesn’t seem like that can be possible. Actually, it is very easy for this to be possible because communication is part of your language system and part of your thinking system. It is part of your psyche. Communication is part of the psyche.

Do you understand this? It assumes that the stories that are told in your mind are true. Sure, we allow for lying and deception. It never even occurs to us to question the assumption – wait a minute, all the communication that is happening in the world that has ever happened, all the thinking that has been done, could these have just been empty shells, stories and labels that were completely arbitrary?

Where Is The Proof?

Could that possibly be true? We never think about that. We never seriously consider that. You also have to ask yourself this. At this point, some people might say – “Well Leo, where is the proof? I need proof of this. You are making a really bold and outrageous claim. We need some scientific proof.”

People can get hung up on this. They can use science as an ego defense. I have a video about that called How Not To Use Science As An Ego Defense. In that video, I talk about this at length. You also have to ask yourself this.

What proof are you looking for exactly? What kind of proof are you expecting? What do some people expect, like a study? Do you expect a study to prove to you that you don’t exist? Do you expect a scientific consensus? What exactly do you expect?

Are you expecting like a microscope picture? You have to understand that we are talking about something internal. Understand that science’s proper domain is external. Science does not really deal with internal and subjective matters or what you call subjective matters.

Science is concerned about looking for molecules, calculating distances, calculating quantities and this kind of stuff. This is not what we are talking about here. Here, we are talking about a certain perspective that you have on life.

Even if there were scientific proof, you would have to wonder what kind of proof it would be. This is a very different animal than we are talking about. In fact, right now, there is a lot of research being done on neural paths and the brain.

We don’t really understand the brain very well at all. We are pretty much in the Dark Ages as far as that goes. We just don’t have the tools and technology to understand the brain. The brain is very complex. Science has theories about consciousness and reality, but one of the currently open questions in all of science, that we haven’t even scratched in the last 3000 years since it was discussed in the Greek and Roman days, is this.

How does matter, what science calls matter, and energy connect and relate to consciousness? We think that matter and energy exist, but we also tell ourselves that consciousness is the most real thing we know. We know there is consciousness.

We know there are colors. We cannot deny that colors exist. Then, on the other hand, what are colors? Are colors matter or are they something else? In philosophy, colors and sensations are called qualia.

This is the qualitative aspect of reality, which science doesn’t really do a great job at explaining. The only proof that you can get for this is by doing the empirical investigation yourself because you are investigating yourself. No scientist can go inside your mind and investigate you for you.

Only you can do that. The looking for external truth is not going to help you here. Another difficult part of this communication is that you literally cannot understand what I am telling you. Why can’t you understand it?

You can’t because there is a you that believes it is there. If you understood it, the you would not still be there, which is the thing we are trying to get rid of. For you to understand it, the only way it is going to happen is if the you dies and if we get rid of it.

Ego Death

It has to dissolve. This is why this is called an ego death in certain spiritual circles. They call enlightenment an ego death because your ego needs to die. One thing that I see people mistaking and getting wrong about ego death is this.

They assume that the ego is like some aspect of them. There is me, and then there is the ego, like the arrogant inside of me. Let me kill the arrogant inside of me and then I will be left. The wholesome me will be left.

No! We are not saying that there is a wholesome you and then some sort of nefarious ego. We are saying that all of it is one thing. The ego refers to everything, so it is your sense of you. Remember, I am pointing my finger at you right now.

Nod your head. That is you. That is the you. It doesn’t have to be something arrogant or nefarious. The other thing is this. To understand this idea, it requires very deep self-honesty. Why? This is because the self is inherently dishonest.

The way the SELF perpetuates itself is through lying or just unconscious behaviors and lack of awareness. What is required to do this empirical investigation is to simply raise your awareness higher and higher, until you see that the self doesn’t exist anywhere. But, this requires self-honesty.

You firstly tell yourself that you are already conscious. You are already fully conscious. That is what you believe. You believe that you are real. You believe in your beliefs. You believe in so many things about life that you are not ready to go in there and question them very objectively and very honestly.

You just give lip service to self-honesty. You don’t actually practice self-honesty in your life, so that is why it’s very difficult. It is also very difficult to communicate this because you don’t like it. This is not a pleasant truth.

When I go around talking about this to other people – I don’t really talk about it to other people. If I chose to, what do you think would happen? First of all, this is a very difficult communication. It is a very nuanced communication. Most people do not even listen to you.

The next thing is this. If they hear it and actually register it, they get upset. They get angry and depressed and they blame you for it. They get confused, or whatever. Their ego defense just kind of entirely keeps them away from this truth.

They might spend their entire lives not looking at this truth, not knowing that it is there. Everyone does this. Everyone in society does this. All of your friends, family, professors, business partners, wife and husband, everybody does this.

This is not a pleasant truth. You have to appreciate it. This will make sense to you. If you study how society works, you have to understand that the stuff that spreads through society is stuff that people like. It is the stuff that is pleasant.

That is why society is all built upon the most low consciousness entertainment and other things that you can possibly come up with. So, what is the most popular food, the most low consciousness and unhealthy food? It is the food that tastes the best, but is the unhealthiest.

It’s McDonald’s. What are the most popular movies and video games? They are also the most low brow and low consciousness movies and video games that you can possibly construct. They appeal to everybody and they are satisfying.

They have no intellectual value, really. You have to use your brain. That is a struggle because most people do not want to use their brains. They just want to unplug. What about music? It is the same for music.

What about politics? Politics is that way too. Who are the political leaders who win the most elections? They are the ones who are the lowest brow, dumbed down and black and white candidates. They are the ones who are the least qualified to run the country.

What about governments? Governments work this way too. Find any system in society that is widespread like this, such as religions. They are the same thing, right? It is all about making something as low conscious as possible. That is what makes it spread through society.

If there is a truth that people really hate, it’s not going to spread very well. The last and most difficult part of this communication is this. To really do this empirical investigation and to understand this communication fully, you need to spend at least a thousand hours doing this investigation yourself. I am not exaggerating.

Spend Time Investigating

I am talking about hard work, hard and emotionally distressing work that takes a thousand hours to do if you really want to understand what I am saying here. You think this video is long? This video is not long. That is at least a thousand hours.

That is in the best of circumstances. That is if you cut out all the religious dogma, all the spiritual nonsense, and go straight to the core of it. You just sit down, drill down and do the empirical investigation day after day after day, a thousand hours at best.

Many people won’t’ do this in their entire lifetime. To be more realistic, it’s more like 10 thousand hours than a thousand hours. Try to understand this. There is a truth that needs to be communicated that nobody likes, requires enormous self-honesty, threatens the shit out of your current life and world view, literally cannot be communicated and it takes a thousand to 10 thousand hours of sitting down and doing hard work to understand it.

Who is going to know this truth? About 10 thousand people in the whole world will know this truth. That is about it. You have to appreciate this. Why do you have to appreciate this?

This is because your mind is coming up with excuses right now not to listen to me. At this point, you might be saying – “Leo, this is very heavy. You are talking really heavy stuff. Some of this stuff sounds really dark, depressing and nihilistic. Where are you going with this? All I want is a good life.”

“Why would I undertake this journey a thousand or 10 thousand hours? You want me to invest that much time studying this. Are you crazy?” Actually, there are some awesome rewards which we have not talked about yet.

There are rewards of doing this work. Why would you want to do this work? It is difficult work. It is long work. There needs to be a worthwhile reward for this. Here they are. I want to numerate some of them.

The Rewards Of Discovering The Truth

Number one – You get access to the truth. It’s the Truth with a capital T. if you value truth, which you should because this is one of the highest values for a human being, then this should interest you.

If you are a scientific person, a philosophical person or even a religious person who has been looking for the truth your whole life and you think you found it or you’re not satisfied with what you have found, this is the ultimate truth. What we are saying here is the ultimate truth.

If you are scientifically minded, this sounds ludicrous to you. If you study philosophy like I have, for six years, this is a ludicrous notion. Actually, this is one of the rewards. It is the ultimate Truth, with a capital T. How? I will talk about that in other videos.

Number two – The other reward you get is lasting happiness and peace of mind. You will have true happiness. What you have now is not true happiness. You are living in a living hell. With this truth, you can actually have true peace of mind, regardless of circumstance.

This is a very cool thing. From the moment you were born and up to today, you have been living your life looking and chasing for happiness. You keep telling yourself that if you watch enough of my videos or if you do enough of the personal development work, you will find happiness.

Well, I hate to break it to you but you never will. You never will. You can already sense it because you have been trying your whole life and it hasn’t been working, has it? Don’t lie. It hasn’t been working.

No matter how many houses you get, girlfriends you get or marriages you get, you are not going to be truly happy. Why? It is not possible because the you is an illusion. This illusion needs to be perpetuated by constant motion. Constant motion creates suffering.

If you want to fix this happiness thing and be peaceful, if you want to be peaceful independent of what is happening in life, no matter if you are rich or poor, if you have a girlfriend or not, if you are married or you’re not, you’re kids are doing good in school or they are not, you’re healthy or you’re sick, you need to be spiritually enlightened. It sounds too good to be true. Again, this is one of the awesome rewards of doing this work.

Number three – The other cool thing you get is an instant elimination of self-image problems. This means all of your self-image problems. You just don’t get how powerful this is. I don’t know about you, but for me, it is very vivid.

My entire life is a drama of self-image problems. What do I mean with that? I mean caring what people thing about me, people pleasing, worrying how I look, worrying about your hair, worrying about this, worrying about that, worrying about relationships, worrying if someone is going to abandon you or love you and all of this.

All of this stuff is self-image problems. That can all be eliminated in one swoop. When you get rid of the self, there are no more self-image problems. It does not make sense.

Number four – The other thing you get with enlightenment is emotional mastery. Emotional mastery is a theme of Actualized.org that we are actually trying to develop here. Actually, it is not possible to develop true emotional mastery through traditional self-help techniques.

Why? There is actually no you at the center of it, controlling emotions or thoughts. Your delusion is to try and control emotions and thoughts, which is not possible. So, how do you get emotional mastery?

You get emotional mastery by discovering that there is no me at all in the first place. When there is no you, do you know what that does? That makes you calm and peaceful. Why does it make you calm and peaceful?

There is no longer any control and you now realize it. You finally realize there is no control. Right now, you are struggling for control that does not exist. Because of this, what happens is that you counterintuitively develop emotional mastery.

This is because there are no longer any emotions of frustration and of trying to seize control. When you let go of that whole game, you’ve got your emotional mastery. But, it doesn’t happen along the lines you were expecting, doesn’t it?

Number five – Another thing that can happen is that you will eliminate all your suffering in life. Why is this the case? Right now, you think your suffering is creating by things outside of you. Actually, your suffering is all internally created, 100% and completely internally created. This is hard to believe because you are so enmeshed with yourself.

When the self is gone, that becomes true. You can get rid of emptiness, feelings of uncertainty, feelings of depression, loneliness, anger, jealousy, purposelessness, lack of motivation or whatever emotional suffering you experience in life. You can get rid of that.

Number six – The other cool reward is that you actually get to understand the true understanding of what religions actually are. Very few people understand what religion actually is and what it talks about, which is “God”. I am putting the word “God” in quotes because it is a very misunderstood word.

It is a very misused word. You can get a true understand of that in a way that you cannot get, whether you are scientifically minded and you do a lot of anthropology, social science or whatever kind of science you do to understand religions. That is not getting you a real understanding of religions, nor is being religious getting you a real understanding of religions.

Both of these caps don’t understand religion or “God” at all. They are very confused about it. If you attain spiritual enlightenment, you are going to understand it really easily. It is a no brainer.

Number seven – The other cool reward that you get is no more fear of death. This is why the Easterners talk about immortality. I don’t know about immortality. The body is certainly going to die. It depends on what you mean by immortality.

The fear of death will not be an issue anymore. Why is it not an issue? Because, like we said, if there is no self, there is no one to protect anymore. There is no one that is going to die anymore. The body is going to die, but you are not going to be identified by your body or your thoughts anymore. It really becomes irrelevant.

Those are some of the rewards. They are pretty cool rewards. I don’t know about you, but these rewards make the process of spending a thousand hours doing this hard emotional work worth it for me. Even the first reward, just knowing the truth alone, is enough for me.

Just knowing the truth alone is worth it, even if it was not good for my life. The problem is that you look at this and say – “Even if what you are saying is true, probably not, but let’s say it is just for the sake of argument, why the hell would I want to know it? It seems like my life is going to become miserable.”

See, you are so concerned about you. You are so concerned about you feeling good. What is that? That is the ego. Also, what you fail to understand in your closed mindedness is that the greatest pleasure in life actually lies on the other end of enlightenment.

Once you get rid of your SELF, there is no more worry, no more frustration, no more stupid rat race and no more chasing of your tail all of the time. You literally get these rewards. These rewards sound pretty far out there. They seem a little too good to be true.

Make no mistake about it. You are going to kill yourself. Do you understand this? You are going to kill your SELF getting these rewards. You are literally going to kill your SELF to get these rewards. How many people are going to kill themselves?

It’s an infinitesimally small number. I am talking to you right now. You are not going to do it. Don’t worry. You are not going to get these rewards. You are too afraid to do it. If you are extremely committed, one out of a million of you who watched this video, if I get lucky enough and in my entire lifetime a million people watch this video, maybe one of you will get this.

One of you will get these rewards. The rest of you will never get them. Not only will you not get them through spiritual enlightenment, but if you don’t get them through spiritual enlightenment, this means you will never get them through any other means that you might imagine you would get them through.

So, if you want any of this stuff, this is the only way to do it. At this point, you might be wondering – “Alright Leo, so then what is the point of this video? You said that the stuff you are talking about here is just a story and I have to spend a thousand hours. What do you want me to do?”

The point of this video is to share this truth with you in a very stark way, so that it disturbs you, so that it is on your radar screen in life. You have been running around life, chasing your tail this whole time. It has not been on your radar screen.

Many of you have already heard this truth in various disguises, in spiritual literature that you have read, your religions and even with science. You haven’t actually pursued it in the way that you have to. You need to make a commitment to do a very serious, self-honest and empirical investigation, without any nonsense and beliefs, into the reality of who you are.

The purpose of this video is to introduce you to this. I want you to stop and consider this, after this video is over, very seriously. Don’t let your mind just jump onto the next thing. Don’t distract yourself.

The biggest way that people don’t achieve spiritual enlightenment is that they simply distract themselves with other stuff. They forget about it, very conveniently. You have to stop and consider very carefully. You are also going to take a look at your emotional reactions.

The emotion reaction that you have, whether you become depressed, sad, angry or offended by what I am saying, if you become critical of what I am saying, if you leave a nasty comment or you have an inclination to it or you have some objections and you want to dispute this, you have some brilliant arguments for how to argue with me, is that there are no arguments here. All of that, those are emotional reactions that you have to be conscious of.

All of those equal the proof that you have been looking for. The proof that you want right now, which you are not getting from me because you say I’m being evasive or whatever, is in your emotional reactions. You have to start seeing how your ego is deceiving you. Your ego and your psyche is what we are talking about here, right?

Just be very mindful of that. I am going to be very mindful as you are leaving comments down below. I am going to be very mindful at pointing out to you at how you are reacting emotionally. There are three dangers with this video, as I am wrapping up here.

The Dangers Of This Video

The first one is that you reject it. You reject it out of hand because you say – “This is a cockamamie idea. It is silly. It’s outrageous. There is no way it can be true.” So, you just reject it out of hand.

Let me remind you, especially for those scientifically minded people out there who want proof, that when a scientist does research, when a proper scientist does proper science, he has a hypothesis. He holds his hypothesis in his mind.

He can hold this hypothesis in mind for 10 years, 20 years, 40 years or an entire lifetime, and maybe even not prove it. He might do that and then he might disprove it at the end. If you really want to do a serious investigation, you have to actually do proper scientific method.

Just because you watched this video and you have some clever little arguments, some little ways to critique what I am saying, does not mean that you did any kind of investigation. No, that means that you have been clever and you have been tricked by your own cleverness in refusing to do the actual research.

You have to do the actual research yourself. What I want you to do with what I am saying here is just take it as a tentative hypothesis. You don’t have to have faith in it. You don’t have to believe in it. In fact, you can’t.

You can’t believe it. We are not talking about beliefs here. We are talking about an insight. You have to have an actual insight into the truth of the matter, not a belief. Don’t confuse this with other beliefs that you have.

This insight that we are talking about; you have never had one of these in your entire life. It is not a belief. Just watch out and don’t reject this out of hand. The other problem that can happen here and the other danger is that you can believe it.

If you believe what I am telling you and you are saying to yourself – “This is just like Buddhism, I’m a Buddhist and I win the religion game!” – Or you say to yourself – “Oh, I am spiritual, I am a meditator, I win, this is right, this is what I believed all along!” – No! That is not what we are talking about here.

You can’t believe this. Beliefs account for nothing. Beliefs are a story. They account for nothing. Nothing! They are just a story. They don’t help you at all. If you believe every last word I said in this video, it does not help you at all.

It does not make you any closer to the truth. The only way in which it might help you is that it might motivate you and inspire you to go out there and do the work to find it. The last danger is that you just might listen to this and think it is cool.

You might even say – “Yes, I am on board with the journey, Leo. Let’s do this journey! Tell me how to do this journey.” What you then do is that you forget all about it a month later. You just forget all about it because life and distractions come and swoop you away.

Society swoops you away, like it does with everybody else. So, you become lost again. You have this brief window of clarity and then you’re lost again. Those are the three dangers. Watch out for them.

At this point, you might be wondering – “Leo, how do I do this work? Let’s say I’m on board with you. Let’s say I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. I am willing to hold this high tentative hypothesis. I will do the empirical work. I will even lay down the thousand hours that you want me to. What do I have to do next?”

How is this work even done? That is going to be the topic of a bunch of new videos that I am going to be shooting because it’s a process. It’s a process and it will require many of videos for you to understand how to do this work.

It is tricky work, full of many traps that you are going to fall into. Fundamentally and to give you an idea, what we are going to do if you are on board with this is that we are going to rip the fuck out of your ego. We are going to rip the fuck out of your ego and we are going to destroy all of your beliefs, all of your most cherished beliefs and all of those beliefs you love so much about yourself, about life and about everybody.

We are going to destroy all of those beliefs. We are going to destroy all of that. At the very end, when you cannot take it anymore, when we twist your arm so bad that you’re screaming, aching and your ego cannot take it anymore, your ego is going to finally surrender. You are going to surrender.

It’s going to dissolve and you are going to see the truth. That is going to require some real work. But, you know what? I am excited by this. I don’t know about you, but I love this stuff. I love ripping the fuck out of my ego. I love it.

It’s great. It’s kind of like a bittersweet thing. Sometimes, I don’t like it. I experience all of these emotional reactions, but I fundamentally want it. I want to know the truth. To me, it’s worth to just know the truth of things.

Right now, I have spent about a year and a half on this journey, studying it and doing a lot of this work. I fell into a lot of traps already myself. I am not spiritually enlightened yet, but I can feel myself getting pretty close.

As I am working really actively right now on my own enlightenment, I want to help show you some of the pitfalls that I have experienced and some of the stuff that I have learned over the last year and a half. I think that there are a lot of practical things that I can show you and techniques that you can use to do this.

They are very simple techniques that you can use to do this that would perhaps take you a lifetime to find otherwise. There is so much confusion about this subject. There is so much nonsense out there. I want to talk about this subject in a very “no bullshit”, “no nonsense” and hardnosed kind of way.

If you really want to get down to the nitty-gritty and you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty, then sign up to my newsletter and the channel. Stick around. There are more videos coming on this soon. I am really excited about that.

To me, that is the whole point of Actualized.org, to talk about this more advanced and deep stuff. Alright, that is a long video. I am done. I am wrapping up.

Wrap Up

This is Leo, I’m signing off. Go ahead and post me your comments. Let me know what you think about this. Click the like button to like this video, so that more people can see it. Finally, share the video.

Share the video on Facebook or with a friend. Sign up to my newsletter too. It is a free newsletter. I release new content every single week, including new videos. Like I said, my advanced videos are coming soon.

You will want to stick around for those. It’s going to be a journey, so stick with it. This is like a marathon. We are training for a marathon. It is going to take some work to do this. You will also get some good free goodies for singing up, such as exclusive videos.

You can also get all of my videos as MP3 downloads for free on the site if you become a member. Go ahead and check that out. I will see you really soon.

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Asaiah Powers says:

So…its like the matrix…….

Kari says:

Yes! It’s exactly like the matrix! There’s an awesome book that explains this reality, and corroborates what Leo is saying here in a much bigger picture. It’s online for free, by Tom Campbell, and is called “My Big TOE.” (TOE is an acronym for Theory Of Everything.)

Leo Gura says:

No, no, no! Watch the fucking video in full

sara worville says:

l injoyed the video felt good

Ellie says:

Leo! I feel relief. Thank you

jolanta says:

Hello, Leo! I have watched many of your videos, but this was realy shoking. I have no information about what scintific degree you have and which University You gradueted, but after this video, I am sure, that You are not a neurologist or spychiatrist and You don’t know how exactly human’s brains working.

Jared says:

You must not have a scientific degree because you spelled “shoking, scintific, graueted wrong and YOU used improper grammar in your last sentence. Thanks for trying though YOU took his ideas on how the brain works as rational in the world YOU live in when you have to forget the world YOU live which is your ego and take his ideas that way. You’re not a pepper aka the one in a million that has the intelligence to shed your ego and truly understand him. I bet you’re religious that’s why…oh well if we were all extra ordinary we would be called ordinary.

Steven says:

Best comment I’ve ever seen lmao

Ana Diaz Romero says:

It’s even simpler Matthew 5:3

Brett Miller says:

Kind of like “pure spirit” actually

Neil says:

Yes Brett. Kinda, if we think about all that we are. As a collective. Law of diffusion. Energy fields or whatever. But, yes it’s a hard thing to handle.

“What goes around comes around” is an unjust euphanism I think. Even the person with the purest intentions can be blind perhaps to the ignorance of their intentions. Or is that unawareness in the judge’s presence.

Eric says:

So if I am getting this right. How will there be any real perceived happiness if there is no me to experience it? If there is no Ego how will this body function other then that of an automaton or monkey?

If I understand what you are saying the monkey is the body’s expression of it’s own existence. An elaborate spontaneous expression of it’s existence. I would be curious on your thoughts of dreams. And in particular could you talk a bit about near death experiences. Are those simply the psyche painting a picture for us based on our stories of what we should see and or feel? How would you explain a child that see’s things in a near death state whom has never seen or heard of them before?

Thank you …and yes this scared the shit out of me. I felt out of body and bizarre half the time.


Leo Gura says:

Well… luckily, the true self — AKA nothingness — is 100% fulfilled and complete. So it’s 100% happy and tranquil. It don’t give a shit. Nothing can disturb nothingness. And you are it!

Asaiah Powers says:

Ohhh so this like the “nothingness” in meditation,that all our conceptualizations,rationalizations arent real everything we think we see, feel is because of this psyche other than that its just “blank”

Heather says:

Hi Leo, well done!Please have a look at Byron Katie’s website on The Work. she explains and communicates, through self investiagtion, what your are attempting to say. You’re right I can’t understand what you are saying because you are talking in concepts and so addressing my intellect. Do “The Work” with Byron Katie and a self understanding is reached through personal enquiry. No one can explain, not even you! Give up and do “TheWork”.

Alex says:

Is there a way to get the time in as we earn a living and care for a family? This is an important question to me, but not the ultimate question. To be frank I would much rather have it than what I have now. So how do I begin the 10K hours. I seriously believe what you say it only makes sense. Especially this is hell. I’ve held that thought for a long time.

Leo Gura says:

Yes, there’s plenty of time. Less TV and other nonsense. You don’t need to quit family and job.

NNN says:

very nice presentation.Thank you i enjoyed it!.

ultimate truth of your presence in Augmented Realty after realization is that..you will be a loner and dont need anyone’s help.
but unfortunately will be seen indifferent and be cornered from current social life as nothingness will only have pure happiness but no entertainment .i feel this is the reason your 10000 ppl also masking faces like others for survival.

last but not least,you didn’t mentioned how you practiced;i choose meditation(many variations in it, i didn’t choose any specific style as i started it as fun over a decade ago,fell in love with the concept and doing on and off) as my vehicle of practice.

David says:


Thanks for another awesome video. I’m mostly in agreement with everything you said. You are taking on a very tough assignment and I applaud you for your courage. As for myself, I’m also doing this work of ego-annihilation, and experiencing some of the benefits you mentioned.

I hope you do continue to produce more videos on this topic, as well as continue to progress on your own path to enlightenment.

Mark says:

David, how did you find yourself on this path (if it’s not to rude to ask) and where did you / are you sourcing your learning material? I guess my journey began with Eckart Tolle’s “the Power of Now” & “A New Earth”, but until finding these Leo video’s, I’ve not had any real guides…?

Mark7 Adelaide Australia

David says:

Hi Mark, thanks for asking this question… I’ve identified with been a philosophical/spiritual seeker for a long time, but only in the last couple of years did I find some clear directions.

Eckhart Tolle is on my list for sure. I got immersed into Tibetan Buddhist philosophy/religion and that really helped me. In any case I’m a little cautious with any religion that is heavily fused with a particular culture, and that is why I like to also listen to other advanced personal dev gurus, like Leo and Simona Rich.

I’m searching for ‘echoes’ of this knowledge, in all places that it can be found. Surprisingly, I’ve found resonance of this topic in all religions, as Leo said, but mostly in the ‘esoteric’ or hidden parts of the religions.

Bottom line, I agree with Leo wholeheartedly in that daily meditation is critical. What I got from my teachers is that through meditation, specifically ‘calm abiding’ or single-point meditation, we train our ‘monkey-mind’ to become able to focus on a single point. This makes our minds more resilient and in fact smarter, and then through other types of meditation such as ‘insight’ meditation we are also able to get in touch with our higher knowledge…

I haven’t seen Leo’s video on meditation yet so I’ll leave it at that. There’s so much more to say. I’m very grateful to Leo and anyone else out there trying to disseminate this essential knowledge.

Regarding your own path, from your words I can sense you are already on it… Just keep asking the questions and you will receive the answers! Much love and power to you and remember this old saying: “When the student is ready, the teacher appears”.


PH says:

Hi Leo,
I’d like to know what you are talking about in a more experiential way. I will look forward to more of your videos on practices that lead to this realization. I like looking at your vids so even if I’m one of the billions who will never get it, I’ll still tune in to check you out!


Miguel Duran says:

Hi Leo,

Thank you for the video, I think the effort is nothing compared to the rewards…

I’m on board.


Jonathan Stokes says:

I’m Excited to get started I want to destroy my ego or as you said “Fuck up your Ego”

Billy Kelly says:

Maum Meditation…exactly the method to find the truth…subtracting ones self…

Brian Bink says:

I am, therefore I am not, now I’m really puzzled. The stories are just that, stories, some are true and some are fiction which sound true, look true and are actually true lies. I can feel my non existent brain being stretched beyond the confining space that is within my skull, now that is mind opening. I need a drink and a drug to stop this mental and spiritual expansion and awakening right now or else I fear an anxiety/panic attack is inevitable.

Leo Gura says:

Let the anxiety come.

Julie Gallagher says:

I have been experiencing some of these same feelings. It is almost as though my mind wants to expand beyond my body and the small space in which it dwells. It’s a strange feeling that I have a hard time explaining, and it does cause anxiety for me also. A sort of panic like wait something is not right here. It started as I have been on this journey of selfactualization.

Carrie says:


I’m super confused. Thanks for the video though.


Brian Bink says:

Carrie Burns by any chance?

Carrie says:

Nope, it’s carnahan. It would be cool if it was burns. I could call my husband Mr. burns lol

brett says:

Hi Leo,

Experiencing the Truth, the non-dual, can be done in more simply than the way you seem to be going about it. It is hard. As you say the ego can fight a good fight. However to experience the Truth does not need complex and time consuming methods. This might shock you, as it shocked me.

I invite you to be shown the way to Truth by a man called Mooji.
Two youtube channels; Moojiji and moonji answers contain many videos in which he discusses this with people from all over the world. Many videos of Satsangs where he guides people in this quest.

This man has a very simple and honest approach to this. He is a master of this and has helped many people to confront this.
I think this would be of great benefit for you in your quest.

I also second another comment above, that Byron Katie also provides a way to experience this Truth.


Lili says:

Very heavy to understand the technology you are talking about. I was involved with this kind of tools for a longtime. What they thought us was this:
You can take a while board and write on it about your entire life until now
and than take a white board eraser and erase everything you wrote. That means life is nothing, you can erase it and leave it blank as it was before.
I have a question Leo, How about our kids. Are they real or fake to us?

Thank you for great video again.

Leo Gura says:

Kids are real, but they are not yours.

Dalo says:

What the fuck man lol.Just kidding.

cck says:

is it like being aware of yourself when you were 1 second old?no thoughts, no you,just a body to someone who don’t have a name yet, who didn’t use the world me yet, being aware at that moment is impossible i know, but is it anything close to this?

Fenn Magill says:

Ooooo, Leo. Sorely intrigued and sniffin’ at the bait, for sure I am. Too often I’ve screamed that naught matters but the Truth. But, Jeez Louise!, the opportunity cost whelms me for the moment. You have taken on the most awesome – and probably thankless – task I may have ever borne witness to. You are one brave soul. In olden times you’d not have been well treated.

Scott Spectre says:

I’m not offended at all by this video or topic. I was not surprised or otherwise emotionally vested one way or another in some knee-jerk reaction to The Truth, which in and of itself was in some ways surprising.

At 55, I have been on a life-long, mostly Quixotic, journey for The Truth; and, only just recently, as in the last few months, have I arrived at some of the same conclusions discussed here…letting go of Ego…as a by-product of my own investigations.

I recognize shimmering allusions to this Truth woven throughout MA’s Meditations, Buddhism’s Emptiness, Christ’s Humility, on and on. And yes, convoluted by “powers and principalities” that influence our day-to-day existence.

I’ve certainly experienced many of the highs and lows life bestows on most if not all of us. Demolishing my own Ego is perhaps one of the greatest challenges I face; certainly the most profound and compelling that I would choose to take on for myself.

I’m in.

Leo Gura says:

You can’t be in, you don’t exist!!

Judy says:

Hi…There is no me and there is no you; I have made you up in my imagination. Amazing imaginations !

Jonathan says:

No i think it’s saying the imagination is not your either

Delissa says:

I’ve experienced a moment of enlightenment, but the trick is how to live from it and stay out of the Ego. However having experienced it, I can no longer buy into what my ego has arranged or imagined for me. I completely agree with you; the ego will fight you all the way. I found that acceptance and self love is needed to make this journey…I’m with you Leo

Ashray says:

So as first step towards spiritual enlightenment, what should I look for and think of? Would I have to questions by my self ? I yes then on what basis? I mean bases like ego or daily experienced emotions or on the basis of keeping in mind what you said. How do I search for answer? Is it thinking by myself only or searches in Internet or biography or what?
What should I look for?

I think I need to watch this video again.

Leo Gura says:

More videos to come on that.

Ashray says:

I wish you would at least give a small 1 line advice but maybe that would make me ask more questions.

Leo Gura says:

Start meditating daily.

Iulian Apostol says:

Leo please answer this question!
So i have listened very closely to what you said and, of course, tried to accept this thing an understand it.and here is my confusion about this thing and I beg you to make it clear.:
So pretty much, that means, that there is no reason to study anymore, to learn anything to take action because everything is connected to my Ego, this means it dosen’t matter studying personal development because, again, It’s about what comes from yourself, your Ego.
It means it dosen’t matter to read books, get mentors,make internet researches, audio and video products, in general it dosen’t matter investing in myself…. Because there is no “myself”.
I, and i believe everyone, who wanted succes(health, wealth, love and happiness) decided to study and to learn more so that in the end they would be what they want.
And it is very hard to give up on this work an this ideas, because now it’s like your whole life was a lie.
Is this the scary thing you are talking about? Understanding that everything is literally useless and that there is no investing in “you”? Because for me it is fucking scary and it’s very hard to investigate an accept this thing, and it’s also kind of risky,although i really want to take this thing seriously, because even though it sounds scary, it also sound true. I need time to make everything clear and to understand it.looking forward for your answer and your next videos
Iulian Apostol, 16 years old

Leo Gura says:

Yes, your life is a lie. It doesn’t feel good admitting this at first. But the sadness will pass and life will go on just fine.

Ninos says:

I would like to know how you came to this realization? What steps did you take like a scientist did you take and come to this conclusion. I have taken the very same scientific approach and asked the question of why does everything exist? How does it all exist? I researched all the theories. I made my own hypothesis and came up with a differnt theory.
We can’t both be right, somewhere along our research one of us miscalculated. Would you break down the steps that you took to come up with this theory?
Who are these 10,000 that came up with the same answer you did? Did they tell you this? Or did you discover this on your own? Who are these ten thousand, are they monks living in mountains? Are they average people living normal lives? What effect did this enlightenment do to there lives? Now that you came up with this truth, how are you going to live differently?

Leo Gura says:

This will be explained in other videos.

Aleksa says:

I hope the videos will come soon (in net few weeks) because this is really interesting topic.

Tony says:

WTF, Leo? I have been following your videos for several months now, and quite a few of them seem to contradict each other….yet, I continue to listen. I guess that you intrigue me in some ways, in that you are a twenty something who thinks that he is some kind of spiritual guru…I guess that your philosophy background has taught you how to exude these crazy concepts…resulting in nice, comfortable, financially secure life from exploiting the insecurities, self-esteem issues and bruised egos of all of us. You are smoother than a lot of them out there…you know how to draw people in…you have perfected the self help guru mode…so I’m now assuming that since I don’t exist, and that it is my ego that is in the way, all of your self help products are moot….no more Tony Robbins or Jim Rohn, or Dr. Wayne Dyer…we should just suck in Leo’s TRUTH, because he holds the key to real spiritual alignment! Although you are espousing this bullshit, that is actually developed to tickle the ego into following you and buying your products, and advancing your notoriety as a guru, I will continue to follow your FREE, ego feeding videos, as I do find some of the info helpful. Good luck on your quest for guru status at the expense of others… ka ching!!!

Leo Gura says:

Man, you need to work out your money-issues

Josh Oakes says:

For sure there is some emotional reaction. Feels like lifting weights emotionally.

Leo Gura says:

Good, your brain needs a workout

cck says:

i didn’t feel upset neither happy, i was just exited and was thinking how to organize my time to start this journey! because it seems that i have a lot of brain workout to do!

Christine says:

When you fully accept the idea (or fact if you believe this) that there is no ‘I’, then there is no ‘I love this’. There is no ‘I’ who can love.
The funny thing is that science as well as spiritual belief systems accept the idea that there is no ‘I’.
For me enlightenment is being fearless, in any situation and feeling agape love for everyone. I am aware that that is a possibility – it feels like watching the sun – but I am not the sun yet. And that is ok. The ‘I’ who doesn’t exists love myself anyway.
Thank you for sharing.

Milos Pistolic says:

oh, you know? cool. i thought you are one of the bullshiters.

irina says:

listening to your video some how i made a conection with dreaming, what about dreams … are dreams stories too? is my ego there when i dream?

Leo Gura says:

Dreams exist, but you do not.

Julia says:

Thank You, Leo! A difficult subject to communicate, but you are very articulate in doing so. I look forward to more from you!

Kari says:

This video made me so angry, alright!!! …. Angry that I have to wait to see the upcoming videos on HOW!!!! I am conceptually aware of the truth that you speak of, but I have not experienced it for myself, as much as I want to. By my calculations, if we spend an hour a day working on this, it would take over 27 years to wrack up the 10k hours needed to get to “enlightenment.” YIKES! I hope future videos will have ways to infuse more practices in our daily life so we can excel more quickly than that! I will be anxiously awaiting future videos on this topic. All of your videos are great, and very helpful. Thank you very much!

Leo Gura says:

Well… try shooting for the 1k hours instead of the 10k. 10k is quite painful.

Rich says:

So, being aware of the fact it’s a metaphor, are you going along similar lines of Plato’s Cave Analogy? I agree on this basic truths but also accept that the actual raw truth is much more vivid and clear. Sounds like a very worthwhile journey, I think you should also give advice and opinion on how to deal with other people’s reactions to our journey or our decision to suddenly change large chunks of our lifestyles as a result of the journey. That for me is always a challenge, as people are almost desperate for you to blend in with everyone else’s unfulfilling behaviour.

Leo Gura says:

As long as you take it as a loose ANALOGY, then yeah, it’s sorta like Plato’s Cave.

Nihi says:

If it is not cummunicatable, why do you keep saying there is no me? Either the one or the other is a lie.

Leo Gura says:

That there is no you is communicable. But what you actually are is incommunicable.

Brizlyn says:

How do you think emotions play into this? True love? Part of the consciousness or the thought and integral to “us” or part of the hosted “reality”?

Leo Gura says:

The ego only knows selfish love. True love is what comes with Enlightenment.

Lucinda says:

Acceptance and self love will be the journey, fuck the ego!!

Adam says:


The real question to be asked here… If there is no “I”… If “I” don’t exist and everything “I” do, think, or act upon is a matter of perception. What the hell is the point of living?

Is to live to seek the truth?

Should I pretend to live in my false image of myself until I seek the truth?

If this theory is true then in “my” opinion our lives are a lie. And if I want to seek the truth I would need to become completely cut off from the “normal” world. In other words, in order to avert being completely fake I should almost become a zombie and not speak words or never take action that “I” think “I” like.

And if the truth is found then what? We live amongst humans who have never found the truth and they are playing this game of what they think reality is.

I’m always on board to believe and take in what you have to offer Leo, but even if this is true, would you want to take on the journey that will make you never fit in amongst other humans? What then will you do?

Leo Gura says:

You are a zombie now without realizing it.

What the hell is the point of living if you know you’re gonna die in the end?

Don’t you want to exist forever? Give up the you and eternity awaits.

There can be no point in life. Life simply exists.

Adam says:

I follow the Stoic philosophy. And in doing so I’ve come to realize that I can master most of my emotions, even the bad ones when they come. Sometimes I even embrace painful things to practice my Stoicism. Stoic philosophy allows us to detach emotionally from everything so we do not feel pain when something is lost. (I’m sure your more then aware of Stoic philosophy).

In following Stoicism I truly believe that I will not fear death if I know that I have followed my values and above all sought tranquility to my fullest.

I feel like I can’t choose both following seeking “The Truth” and Stoicism. Stoicism has guided me to a happier lifestyle.

I don’t want to lose this philosophy yet I admire this topic and might be up for the challenge. Would I have to drop my current philosophy of life?

Also, I’m not quite sure what you mean by eternity awaits. Once our capsule (our body) has degraded how would “life” be pleasurable without our senses?

Leo Gura says:

Don’t you think it’s time to let that baby blanket you call Stoicism go? Aren’t you ready to be a real adult and merge with reality instead of playing games?

That’s all philosophies are, games.

You fear death like a little frightened rabbit. Every day you must use “Stoicism” to fight the evils of your mind. What if you could just lay all that nonsense to rest and never have to worry about anything ever again?

The thing you seek through Stoicism is only possible through Enlightenment.

Adam says:

Here’s what I’m worried about. And in so many words I think everyone who believes in this is asking the same question.

The journey to spiritual enlightenment in a long one, during which I will have to “fuck up my ego”. I will have to destroy my sense of self.

This long journey of telling myself everyday that “I” am not real as I know it will be filled with loss of purpose, depression, fear, and so many other emotions until we attain spiritual enlightenment (if it is a real thing).

My main question is should I put myself through a wide array of negative feelings and detach myself from the world as we have known it for so many years before I have attained enlightenment?

You talk as though your not sure if spiritual enlightenment is attainable. Are there accounts of people actually attaining spiritual enlightenment? If so how is there life? And how come it’s not known?

Also, people relate the drug DMT to experiences like spiritual enlightenment. Even though they have no comparison the claim is their sense of ego has been completely annihilated. Do you think there’s any relation here?

Leo Gura says:

Yes, enlightenment takes work. It’s not depressing by any means. It will cause stress and emotional upheaval at times, but nothing crazy. Most people drive themselves mad with work and family. So it’s not like I’m telling you to go jump off a cliff.

There are many enlightened people alive today. You can speak to them, watch them on video, hear them talk, etc. They are psychology the most healthy and happy and loving people in the world. Why? Because life after enlightenment is heaven. Nothing bothers you. Everything is sweet.

Ceci says:

Hey, Leo.

You know, this video reminded me of the times when I wonder about “existence”. I mean, many times I sit thinking and wonder what life is, what things are, and kind of that everything becomes senseless. I wonder if we really exist, if this (whatever it is) is all true, and I have serious doubts about it, like it’s all a big lie. It has happened to me to look at myself in the mirror for long enough and not recognize myself, like I’m not that thing I see in the reflection. For years I’ve believed we just live a big lie, that we don’t exist, I can’t find the purpose of it all and the emptiness I feel is really disturbing. Nonetheless, I do have my happy moments, my job, etc… But it all seems so unreal. Thank you for this enlightening video, Leo.

All the best,


Adam says:

Hey Ceci,

I’m sure Leo will have a better response for you, but your a prime candidate for self-development and even Stoic philosophy. I was sitting in your shoes not too long ago. I felt like I didn’t have a purpose and life was kind of just a drag. Since I’ve been studying Stoicism and watching Leo’s videos my life has completely changed. I have found my life purpose, and completely driven towards it everyday, and I am experiencing tranquility on a day to day basis. There’s no easy way to set your life straight and experience unfaltering happiness. It takes time and effort. But the paths are already paved for us from philosophers like Zeno, the creator of Stoicism, and Marcus Aurelius, the greatest Roman emperor, who was also a Stoic.

Kristin Reichborn Kjennerud says:

Yeah. That’s long…
My reaction to this video is that I’m worried about morals. If there is no self how are you responsible for your actions? The second reaction is that I love my distractions. I am not sure if I would like to give them up to eternal peace of mind. Sounds boring. And also. You seem pretty sure of your perspectives on reality. Do you have reflections on that?

Leo Gura says:

No one is responsible for anything.

Of course you don’t want to give up your distractions. You’re a drug addict in a very real sense. And you create every ounce of your living hell with that. Feel free to stay a drug addict.

Us wise ones will choose “boring” sober life.

Kristin Reichborn Kjennerud says:

“No one is responsible for anything” is a stupid answer. You should be able to come up with something better than that. You seemed to me as an intelligent person

Can you remove me from this thread? or tell me how I can do it? Your application is spamming me with answers to your video

Leo Gura says:

Just cause you don’t like it, doesn’t make it stupid. Who can be responsible if there is no one home? You have no more responsibility than a droplet of water or a grain of sand.

There should be an unsubscribe link in the emails. Click it.

ahmed says:

that’s really confusing!! i can’t just accept. Leo, i couldn’t understand what you’re trying to say

Josh Oakes says:

That’s like most of the point. You can’t understand it because there is no you to be understanding it. Plus I think understanding this video at most will just give you sort of a point in the direction of what you should be looking for.

The whole video is a pointer to an experience.

“You” is a concept, there is no “you”. What is real is experiential, non-conceptual.
I’m not entirely sure, (there’s that I word again) but I have a feeling Leo is pointing to some sort of present moment awareness, ego
Death… Thing or non-thing… The ego being your self concept, meaning the “you” that you think of when Some one asks “who are you”.
Who (or what) ‘you really are’ is something you cannot define as doing so would make it conceptual, and also it would make a distinction of you being diffrent from everything else. What people usually talk about themselves being is a label claiming to be the thing it is labelling. It’s like thinking when someone points to a full moon, there finger is the thing they’re getting all excited about (it’s not just look at the moon). Bruce-lee touched on this.

Josh Oakes says:

Concept and reality – ego and present moment. Is kind of like the concept of “the map is not the territory”
And the idea that we are seperate from the rest of existence is also false.
Tolle talks about how we’re sort of the space for experiences to happen. That we’re the eternal observer. David dedia talks about this as well and I’m pretty sure it’s buhda-y as well.

But Leo seems to be pointing to something more nuanced here.

Marty says:

I believe that what it is about here, is the full and total awareness (not of yourself).
Once this is accomplished the mind and body is fully aligned with the present.
just to name few of them:
– Ego dead
– Illusion dead
– Mind aligned with emotions
– Complains engine stopped
– Projection & forecast engine off

Mind trick you to trails of thinking once control you free yourself and start
controlling your thinking process in real time before the event triggers the
thoughts that generates the thinking trails and generates the emotions

You will need meditation to maintain this in your life a lot of it.
mediation is the connection to the full present. Hence the reasons behind why it is called the “present”.

try to understand now the word: INdependent (it says it all)
control the inside and you will get the the secrets of the gods

I have been tracking this all my life so far… and still focus to always learn more keys.

By the way Leo I LOVE YA MAN..

You are a real guide for many and this is what this world need. Finally one that do not fear to give fully freely. and best is your giving the best present ever ;o)

Asaiah Powers says:

Hello leo your 20 part video series i signed up for it said im alreay perscribed but its not in my email what do i do?(i had it before yet i deleated it before watching the rest of it.)

Leo Gura says:

Email me

Rob says:

Awesome and flawless presentation! Honestly, when you finally “broke” the Truth (or at least, an approximation of it), I felt nothing but intrigue. “But Leo” …what about the dot? A real cliff hanger I tell you, hopefully to be resolved in future videos. I’m on board for future work and videos …looking forward to ripping the f&#k out of my ego and seeing the expression on his face when he finally realizes he’s been hounding someone who never existed!

Leo Gura says:

The dot was just an exercise to open your mind to something you wouldn’t have believed possible if I explained it to you with words.

ryan says:

So i watched this and have then been pondering it. Obviously i find it very difficult to even begin to understand, which is of course impossible.

The insight that i did find which i think i am able to communicate is that i am not the thoughts that i am thinking, i am not the entity that is having those thoughts, but i am the awareness, the perception that is observing them, and that this awareness, this perception isn’t anything different then the same awareness and perception that is what reality is in itself, no different then the same awareness that is observing the thoughts of any “person” or the properties of anything in reality. So the notion of myself as this being that is having these thoughts and making these actions is an illusion but what is actually happening is these thoughts and actions are being observed or witnessed by whatever i actually am which is just the oneness of all reality and awareness.

Does this make any sense Leo? I realize the paradox in itself that i am attempting to explain and understand what cannot be explained at all and cannot be understood in this “realm” of thoughts persay.

As i start to think i have someone of a beginning of a grasp on the subject all that is exposed is that i don’t know anything at all … i am lost.

Leo Gura says:

Yes, intellectually that’s about as good an explanation as you’ll arrive at.

But in actually, you don’t exist and that isn’t clear to you yet. Intellectual understanding is a first step in this work, but very very very very very far from what we’re after.

Stay with it.

ryan says:

I wanted to add that i also did what you said and paid attention to my emotional response to this, and it was very interesting, and i feel like i experienced what you mentioned about observing those emotions is what actually exposes the truth.

I felt the emotions of fear and anxiety. “I” was afraid. But what was interesting was that “i” quickly felt am extreme detachment to those emotions, and could see it was something else entirely then myself, something that was afraid of being exposed, something that already intrinsically knew what the truth was but was very threatened and afraid of the realization becoming transparent, as if its existence depended on the illusion to remain, it was very interesting like as if it knew what was happening, like it was saying “fuck, this motherfucking leo just gave this “guy”(lack of words to describe) the tool to kill me and im afraid” and it felt like this “thing” was bitter about it.

It felt like this “ego” or “Self” was very much a real thing, something that existed and was having feelings/emotions and thoughts, but was very clearly not “me”. I know that eventually i need to realize that its not a real thing. IT just felt so real , i was observing its fear, and how can something not real be afraid, how can it be anything if its not there. I realize i will never be able to conceptualize the answers to this in words and its a silent epiphany i have to work towards but nonetheless its fascinating to explore the concept with words.

ryan says:

wait… how do i stay with it if i don’t have any free will? isn’t it already predetermined whether or not i am going to stay with it, and its not only not even a choice i will make one way or the other but this little piece of pure consciousness trapped inside this body that it thinks is itself may or may not stick with it but it doesn’t even matter if it does because it’s not me anyway? i am just an awareness that is observing its inevitable death or inevitable proliferation of its hellstate..

head explode.gif etc

i can’t make it stopppppp lol

Leo Gura says:

Yes, that’s the right way to go about it. Keep looking and looking.

There is no you to stay with it. You cannot cause enlightenment because there is no you.

Leo body can cause your Enlightenment though, because Leo’s body is real

ryan says:

body = computer

brain = operating system

consciousness = application inside the operating system

ego = feature of the application

witness/awareness/god/you/everything/nothing/invisible hand/universe= end user of the computer …creator of the computer….

ok so in my novice 1 day of pondering this i have came up with this allegory.

basically the consciousness is an application that evolved (or was placed there by aliens, tree of knowledge or whatever doesn’t matter) for some unknown reason if any at all. this is like if there is a computer program inside of your computer thats application was to store memories, think, make up dreams and goals, conceptualize etc.. everything that you think is you right now is just this application. the application becomes aware of itself and it believes that it is itself the entire computer, it identifies itself as the entire computer without understanding it is just an artificial intelligence application inside the computer that can be deleted without changing the actual makeup of the computer.

with meditation what we learn to do is pause this program. when we stop our thoughts and focus on the present and stop thinking about the past and future, we are bringing the applications functions to a pause and in those moments we can begin to realize that “we” are not the application because we are still there when we shut it off momentarily.

what enlightenment does, is its basically figuring out how to go into this programs settings and uncheck the “enable ego” checkbox. When we do that, the application still runs, it creates memories and produces thought as it did before but it no longer has the illusion that it is the computer itself. It isn’t anything. Just a process. We have all been programmed with the same application.

what “we” are then, in the sense of “you” who is thinking right now is just a feature inside of a brain that was evolved to perceive reality. “you” are just a function. What is left when you pause the program? The witness, or the energy of the universe or whatever it is…… basically its the same thing as whatever GOD is , so when the preacher says “don’t worry about what happens or has happened, because GOD is directing all of your steps” the preacher is actually correct. God is the one using the computer. You are using the computer because you are God. AFter you turn off the program you realize “you” are still there , the “you” that was observing the program that thought it was the computer that you are actually directing as you are all other computers.

Another quick metaphor. If i was able to electronically create an artificial intelligence chip that i could insert into my dogs brain that worked with his brain and had the functions of a conciousness with an ego, this artificial intelligence i created, would have the idea that it was itself the dog, that it and the dog were one and the same because it would think it was creating the dogs actions, when in fact it is just an application that is interacting with the dogs brain and the dog itself is still what it was before. This computer chip if intelligent enough could figure out how to stop itself from running… then when it did that, it would realize the dog was still a dog and doing dog things, and that “it” the computer program doesn’t exist in the way it thought it it… that computer chip would then be enlightened.

Leo Gura says:

No, no, no. Stop all this analyzing and thinking. These are just more stories which are digging you deeper into beliefs and ego. The ego loves to try to figure this out with logic. THAT CANNOT EVER WORK!

There is no software/hardware/end-user distinction. Reality is much more sublime than that.

If you want to do something useful, just sit silently. That will move you closer to the truth. No thinking!

Josie says:

Hey friends,

I went through some emotional turbulence (like Leo described) after I watched Sam Harris’ “The Self is an Allusion” on Big Think. He sums it up well in the 6 minutes. (You can find it on Youtube- start at minute 2:50) After watching it, I promptly read Harris’ book, “Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion.”I highly recommend it.

I felt very fueled afterwards- Like, “Yes! I want to be enlightened!” Then I realized that’s fucking difficult, and that’s why hardly anyone gets there.

So, what’s wrong with accepting that our sense of self is an allusion, and then just using this understanding to hack our own psychology? (ie. Creating meanings/interpretations that make us happy.) That’s one thousand times easier than reaching enlightenment, right? Why again is knowing the Truth important? I know Leo sort of addressed that, but… I don’t get it.

Leo Gura says:

You cannot hack anything because there is no you and there is nothing to hack!!!

Ascura says:

Two questions.
If the human mind was evolved the way it did just to be able to function, why would you want to change that? Would being enlightened not mean, fundamentally changing the way the mind works, making it unsuitable for function in modern society? Seems to me that knowing this Truth does not have an advantage if you want to be able to function in modern society. Apparently, the ‘vision of Truth’ has been lost in evolution because it was no longer necessary, or even redundant like a vestigial organ.

Secondly, if you are enlightened, and there is no more you, no ego, are you still ambitious? Can you still pursue goals in life? Or will you ‘understand’ that your existence is a lie and nothing you do is relevant and you might as well commit suicide right now? If pursuing goals, meant to kiss my ego’s ass, makes me feel good and worth something in life, I’d rather stay unenlightened.

It might be that the only reason you’d want to pursue this Truth, is to know it. Not because it could serve you in any way, and basically my question is, WOULD it serve you in any way or would knowing and acting on this Truth actually make your life really difficult? Yes, I’ve listened to the summary of the rewards knowing this Truth might gain you, but a stable constant life, without negative (or positive at that) feelings, just sounds very dull. If I didn’t feel a need to achieve something in life, I would just sit down and sustain myself till the end of my days for no reason in particular. Perhaps the ‘vision of Truth’ got lost in evolution because it made way for our desire to give purpose to our lives?

Leo Gura says:

You’re missing one HUGE thing: evolution and survival have nothing to do with the existential truth of existence. So evolution does not care about truth or happiness. It only cares about reproduction. That is why you can never be happy. It’s not in evolution’s favor. But evolution isn’t the only thing that matters. In fact evolution is pointless in the grande scheme of things.

Your entire line of thinking is extremely selfish. Look at how selfish all your questions and responses are. You care about nothing but your false self. You don’t even care about truth. Notice how it cripples you. You’re imploding under the weight of yourself!

This video told you how to be eternally peaceful and happy, and your response is that you would rather pursue goals. What the fuck is the point of your goals if not happiness? You haven’t thought your life through very well. You won’t get happiness through goals. That is a lie evolution created in you so that you would reproduce more. So right now your entire existence is that of a robotic breeding rabbit with no off button. Even when you aren’t breeding, you still act like a robotic breeding rabbit. And so you suffer and will continue to suffer and die in agony. That is what the Christian’s call hell. You are living it right now with your cycle of “ambitions” and “goals”.

Don’t lie. Look inside and see the deception in you.

Aleksa says:

I ”understand” the concept of whole this topic.The goal is to kill your ego so you don’t seek ”pleasures” anymore. By pleasure i think of our constant desire to be fulfilled, even tho when our most common needs are fulfilled.In truth, we never can’t be happy if seek any type of pleasure.

No matter how big impact on the world you have, no matter if you are loved and admired by every human being living for eternity, you will always look for something ”more.”And the truth is, our mind really has no limits so that ”more” has not limits either.And your ego dooms you for life presenting this illusion of reality in form of mind and awareness.It is like living beautiful nightmare.

But i am scared as fuck…my ego is scared as fuck…This fear i feel is so strong because consideration of killing this ”fear” is our biggest and constant fear and it leads us to constant suffering.


Elaine says:


Bas says:

You don’t have a conscience, you only think you do!

I thought the conscience was some inevitable byproduct of a complex computing machine like the brain. Uuhm… I was going to write a whole lot of things but my head is one big mess. Somehow good to hear you haven’t found the big T yourself, I guess this means the journey itself is rewarding. Feeling excited and scared.

Leo Gura says:

You mean consciousness. Conscience is different from consciousness.

Bas says:

Lol yes, I’m not a native English speaker.

elie says:

great that your spreading the word Leo,a request, please give the people more of a taste of what letting Go of the ego can do:

no worrying,
No fear,
no baggage.

I believe you will get through to more than 1 person!
but many would not make it through that last video without a little more sizzle! I understand it was necessary though.


julia says:

Hi Leo!
Pleeeeeaaaase answer my question,please!!! cos if I’m always confused about this part, I can’t start my investigation.
Ok, the thing is we all have the ego kinda for survive. If I really jump out of myself, maybe I will not do those things even to protect myself. For example, a truck is coming towards me and if I don’t sense the “me” and don’t believe anything like I could be killed by the truck and only observe the reality, maybe I indeed will be killed.
Does this sound crazy? Could you please explain me this?

Iulian says:

I know you want a response from Leo, but I may help to
So here is the thing, when a truck comes, and you suddennly appear before it, the eyes will eventually transport the information they have, through perceptors,
to the brain.The brain will eventually transport the information throughout the body, and the body will eventually move itself to survive.This happens in a 1/4 ( even less) of a second. There is no “you” which control the body.The body, which exist, is an organism which works by itself, just like everything in our universe.
Reality is just regenerating itself with no “on” or “off” switch.
Hope that helped you

julia says:

hahaha I like what you response, but the truck is just an example, will I be so lucky that everytime the body or whatever will automatically save me? That’s my question.

Iulian says:

Well I think we should take a look at what Darwin called “Survival of the fittest”.

If you know what this is, I guess you will understand.
But, I personally don’t know, although, I don’t think understanding this thing, wil somehow change the way your emotions are. Ok? I mean don’t imagine something supernatural

Leo Gura says:

Understand that there isn’t a you RIGHT NOW, and there NEVER WAS a you. Which means… every time you think you saved your life, it wasn’t you doing the saving, but the automatic actions of the body. The body is programmed to survive and it does so 100% without YOU. Your feelings of control over the body are an illusion. You can’t even lift your own finger. The body does it for you, then you lie and claim ownership over the movement.

You have to open your mind to the idea that you lie to yourself ALL THE TIME. Thoughts lie. And you just believe them without any fact-checking.

Debbie says:

Looking forward to the next part…thank you

Ramona says:

The shocking part of this video was not the information that you shared, but the fact that you are in war. It seems to me that it’s a new goal for you. You’re in a struggle with this person called Leo Gura (that you depise) and the result is not peace of mind. I can see it in your eyes, in the way you breathe, in the expression of your face. You are not coming from light. This whole idea that you don’t exist is nonsense. “I AM” cannot be denied, but yes, you can argue with what is coming after these words: “I am George, I am shy, I am the husband of Margaret, I am the owner of this house, etc.”, because if you eliminate one of this elements or all of them, I still AM. I AM ALL OF THAT, BUT NOT ONLY THAT. So the “I” is not the problem, the suffering comes from the identification with this person who has to live in this world, with her belongings, with her attachements. We come here and we receive a name from our parents, we go to school, receive an education, make connections with others, have desires, set goals, experience all kind of states of minds, all kind of things. We cannot all live in a cave. Your relationship with this person called Leo Gura is one of dispise, as if you want to erase all the work he had done until now. It’s not about erradicate this person, it’s about understanding that it’s a role we assume in this life: the son of somebody, the nurse, the personal coach, the adventurer, the artist, the teacher, the monk, etc. At one moment in the future, we leave not as the son, as the nurse, as the friend, but as a flux of energy who will, probably take another form after death. Probably. So, instead of making war with this person that is necessary to live in society, that has to take care of a body, of an income, of the interactions with others, why not just be relaxed, allowing this person to be, feeling peace with all the things that will happen to this person (good, bad), be grateful that you have a body to experience this world, knowing all this time you are not just this person, you are more than that?
Take care.

Leo Gura says:

Everything above is an ego deflection. How clever you are at making this about me, when in fact it’s about YOU! You cleverly ignored your own emotional reactions to the video by projecting them on me.

Ramona says:

I AM. Clever? Have no idea. YOU ARE. In war or any other thing I wrote? Don’t have a clue. Am I projecting my emotional reactions on you? Who’s asking, who’s answering? I don’t know and, in fact, I don’t care. I have brilliant sun outside and white fields loke diamonds. It’s just enough for me.

Elie says:

Do you Know what that dot test thing is called ? Im giving my son these tools, different ways to look at things and the two optical illusions are perfect.

Thanks Elie

Leo Gura says:

The Grey Dot

Andy says:

Hi Leo and everyone!
What you’re saying here Leo is certainly right but I allow myself to point one thing out. To get to the state of spiritual enlightenment as you describe it here is impossible for a regular human being (like all of us) without the constant guidance and supervision of someone who already got it. Certainly everyone is free to look for the truth but it’s guaranteed that you’ll end up with one or the other form of neurosis before you’re even close to enlightenment. The right person will guide you through the entire process and it does not have to take that long at all. Certainly it takes hard work as you said and it’s a big commitment. If anyone is interested, the guy who knows how to do it stays at the place called Pic lumineux in France.
As a warning I have to say that if you ever think that you’re enlightened you’re as far away from it as it is possible.
Been there , seen it , lacked the balls to work hard.

Thank for the video Leo and give us some more.

Leo Gura says:

That’s silly. Anyone can become enlightened. How do you think the very first people got Enlightened? By magic? No, they discovered it themselves.

Guidance is certainly helpful. I have received guidance and now I am passing down what I have learned to you, if you want it.

Andy says:

I don’t doubt your good intentions Leo. The thing is I have seen enlightened people and people who thought they were enlightened and trust me it was a painful experience to watch them. A regular person cannot recognize that he or she is enlightened or not as they don’t know what they are looking for in the first place. It’s like following the blind. Even most of the so called Buddhists these days don’t have a clue what an enlightenment is. IMHO

Piotr says:

Hi Andy, could you write more – why do you think this guy is “the one”? is it pure intuition or can you describe it somehow?

Andy says:

Hi Piotr.
I am talking from personal experience. I met the guy years ago and it was mind blowing. Unfortunately, after some time I decided I was ready and I quit. My scared little mind tricked me into doing it and I really regret. I went through some mild nervous breakdown after that. I was lucky. Before and after I met a lot of people who claimed they had “it” but they did not know shit and lived their sad lives drinking camomile tea, trying to convince themselves that meat is bad and would cringe at the sound of the word “sex”.

Well, enough, this is Leo’s site and I am not going to run an advertising campaign here. I only wanted to share a piece of advice as I thought it was important. If you want to dig deeper I am willing to share a whole story off the record. Get in touch [emails not allowed]

henri says:

Great, a jnani dressed up like an all american guy, throwing in some paradoxes, blowing up some mindconcepts, creating holy confusion, love it.
Wonder where it brings you, this alternative route US style. Staying honest and tuned in with your audience will be the hardest part because solitude is an almost inevitable part of the journey.
Jai Guru Dev (victory to the light within you)

Yogi Keung says:

Hello Leo,

Firstly, congratulations on finding your (the) truth! I am wondering, now that you know the truth, how does this affect your believe system(s) prior to finding this truth?
Does it affect your desire for sex or food or any other ego enhancing activity?, Does it change your viewpoints to “all” the videos you have published prior to finding this truth, more specifically does the truth negate all your previous work? How will this change your meditation practice?

Just wondering


Lisa says:

Your video did not cause fear, anger, sadness or dispute. Years of abuse (others and self-inflicted), near death experiences, loss of everything I/ego felt was dear over almost 60 yrs slowly tears the ego apart bit by bit leaving a hole for the light to shine through. Metaphorically speaking…like a finding the beauty in a rotting log down to the cellular level. The rotting is birth – neither ugly or beautiful, bad nor good it just is. And that’s okay. The work is not drudgery or easy. It is living in a body, aware of inside and out. Dissolving into particles the wind can blow through, the sunlight surrounds, sound tickles and vibrates and returning (because the ego wants us fed and bathed!). When the “I” starts slipping into place, it cannot take hold, but will be tolerated for its usefulness and released again. It is a peaceful place here….but one cannot stay forever (maybe when we literally die), but gather intermittent moments (not quantitative moments, but there’s no word I can think of to put here) Some might say – she’s crazy! Had to go there to get here and back. Thanks for the video.

Ninos says:

I have not heard anyone mention the elephant in the room. The SOUL!!! I am very open minded christian that I put jesus to the test everyday and compare his teaching to other teachings. The idea the Leo has has some truth but not in the way he explains.
We are put on this earth by god, which has put our souls into this earthly body. He has given us specific instructions for our own good because he loves us. He sent his son to help us and Jesus taught us how to live. He also asked us a very small favor, believe in him.
The thereo Leo brings to us doesn’t solve who put us here? who made us? What happens to us when this body dies? The answers are all in the bible. There is no questions after reading the bible.

Iulian says:

Read please carefully, I respect your argument, and also the fact that you have something you believe in( in your case is Christianity).
I may be a bit rough here, but don’t worry I don’t mean any hurtf things
This things that you told me really piss me off! Religion! Believe in Religion! Bible is the sacred book! I beg you…
I come a Christian family, and i was exactly like you are until the age of 15.
I started to see things more differently and I happy that i gave up on these thoughts.
My friend, again don’t take any offense, but please keep your religion reasons for yourself, why? Because the religion and the bible has been changed for over the last 1000 years. What we are told now is only 40% pf what Jesus really did. Jesus explained somethin far more wise than what we are told.
Again, I respect everyone, but i want for you to understand that what you are saying is limited.
If you would like, you can Email me so we can disscuss about it, just for the sake of making it clear, Peace

Leo Gura says:

Enlightenment solves all those problems. There is no soul or anything else. All that exists is reality from which you a presently separate via your religious beliefs. Jesus knew this, but your religious teachers have confused you.

You did not listen well to the video. Watch it again. Put your religious ideas away. They are all a distraction.

Fabienne says:

Leo – that was bloody painful to listen to!! (But thanks anyway for the headache)

I started my own journey very recently. Got eventually my head around the ego being this programmed beast, and I can understand why without all these external influences, believes and all that jazz, that the I would be nothing.

Now – does the conscienceness still exist? Or am I really nothing? :-/

Thanks (from France)

Modest Momcilovic says:

I am a fool, know that, but so far, this is the first time that i am totally disagreeing with you, couldn’t watch to the end

Ninos says:

Thank you Julian, I would love to have you email me, I welcome other point of views. My email is [emails not allowed]

Piotr says:

Hi Leo! Thanks for this video, I think it’s very inspiring itself and whets appetites for the “technical” part.

Still and especially as we’re touching a subject that it’s difficult to grasp somewhat by definition, I think that for a moderate sceptical audience some evidence that “your” path is “valid” would be very vaulable. Of course the best would be something like “enlightement efficiency” measured by the number of such people (you mentioned the total, suppose coming from different traditions) and “speed” of reaching certain stages (some buddhist tradition introduce concept of “partial enlightement” which sounds quite practical).

Even if the above is not possible, any evidence of the research / comparison between traditions that you’ve made, information which one you’re based on would be helpful to locate your teachings in the “enlightement paths” offered by different schools/ gurus.

The real gold would be certainly a full fledged comparision but this is a subject for a separate video or series, so probably too much to ask for

Leo Gura says:

The evidence in this work is generated by doing the work! I don’t care about traditions of any sort. Enlightenment has nothing to do with any kind of tradition or culture. The work is done via direct investigation into your own consciousness.

Piotr says:

Leo, it’s not about caring about tradition, but about the SOURCE of this truth/practice.

I understand the evidence can be the work, but it comes _after_ doing the work, hence after some thousands of ours, doesn’t it – so there’s big time investment aspect in play.

Secondly you’ve told yourself you’ve not made it yet, so you need to _belive_ that your practice is the right one, you cannot know it if you’re not enlightened yet – so there must be some external source of proof rather then practice itself.

Thirdly – the truth itself, and it’s simmilar to the second one – if you’re not at the end of the path, you cannot experience / sense / know it still. so something must have convinced .

Lastly – although I’m quite rational person, I can imagine such hard-core messing with mind can have some unexpected results like mental disorders for instance. A “security certificate” is quite important to that I can say – “ok, I don’t know what I will be there down the road but I can trust, go and check”

Piotr says:

What I will also like to add that my questions are by no means to undermine the idea.

This is extremely intriguing and I do have my positive experience with this stuff but this CAN be described :
– I decided to practice because of certain “role models”- my friends who exhibit unexeptional energy, freedom from false beliefs and connection to other people
– I’ve experienced myself some positive aspect – like crushing some of my limitations, which was more effictient that any psychoterapy could be (I belive)

But all that has certain rational and logical bacgroud – proof by example of others, personal improvement.

Yet I cannot tell this practices (mostly meditation) will help me be enlightened in the end.

So what are the next steps? For me:
– either to follow one of eastern traditions (like Zen buddhism), but here there’s a risk they’re suited better for eastern type of world perspective (not so ego-centered)
– or select one of the “westernized” paths (e.g. Big Mind Process) or – perhaps – Leo Gura’s process…

Still to make the decision, there should be SOMETHING (I’m not saying scietific type of poof, but something). For some it’s intuition, charisma, for me – concrets – what are the psychological well-being improvement facts? how many people went through the process? what is their culture cirle?

I give Leo so much credit based on his so forth work that I will try his methods anyway, but having the above information would give me peace of mind to abandon searching in other “enlightement paths”, at least for some time

cia says:

I follow A Course in Miracles – it’s about understanding that we are all part of the whole and realizing we have never been separate from what is real and good. Unfortunately, as a culture, we believe we are separate, keeping us consumed by guilt. It’s a complex study. We are only our minds and not our egos or our bodies – we observe our lives like watching a play or a movie. Hence, our challenge is to be mindful. I will review this video a few more times to see the parallels between the “course” and what you are saying. Regardless, you are my guru! Thanks for speaking your mind!

Ramona says:

You know what, this is my emotional reaction after listening to your video for the second time. I feel anger and disappointment. You say, in the comments above, that ambitions and goals make us eternally unhappy, that we don’t exist, bla bla bla, but guess what, you massively contribute by your site to the strentghening of our ambitions and goals: go to gym, have a fit body, pursue excellence in all the aspects of your life, become a sex guru in bedroom, visualize, eat healthy, etc, etc. Now you have the gut to come and tell us that we don’t exist and that all that you said until now is complete bullshit and don’t even SAY SORRY for misleading us?!?Oh, I forgot: you have no respobsablity, you don’t exist. Fuck you, Leo! You are an hypocrite. Suddenly you are now on the “wise men side”, and we are just fooling around with our futile and stupid lives, ambitions and goals. So, fuck you!
And yes, it’s my ego that is talking right now loud and clear. I am faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar away from being enlightened.

Piotr says:

I think (or my intuition is) that there’s no contradiction between working on our ego and trying to get rid of this.

we can treat it as a insurance – we cannot be sure we can get rid of ego (or “experience the Truth”, whatever you call it) so at least we should make sure it’s as best as possible

yet I see a need for making it more clear, especially for those who hear such “revelations” for the first time. I’ve personally had touched buddhism and some practices and even experienced some very tangible effects. but all of this CAN be described somehow.

Darren says:

How do you know this is an illusion?
Who told you?
When or how did you come to this realisation?
Written in our limited language capability (words).

Darren says:

Also when you said it was going to scare us, deeply, it did not really move me. Maybe I have not seen the impact yet.
I was more worried about being worried, then you said. We are not real, it is an illusion.

Why hype it up, just bang, get it out to people.
They will sit and think?
How can you test if it is real or not, my hands which are not my hands, are typing into this computer.

It is just a bit weird for me this concept, that is a concept that can not be expressed as a concept, or the truth is a truth that is not able to communicate it is a truth.

Seems quite abstract.

Is the truth , this is all an illusion, is that the truth?

Piotr says:

I think that this “there’s no I” leads to a couple of logical contradictions.

Let’s say that, if there’s no I – this what we think is “The I” is only a “illusion of I”, in this case:
– who and why should care for “Illusion of I”
– what is left in an enlightened person, when they get rid of “Illusion of I”

That’s why for me a concept of “lower self”= ego and “higher self” = awareness, presence, soul whatever you call it is more handy as it allows ourseves to get rid of the “false identification” almost infinitely without the above contradictions.

The only one reason I can think of why to try to imagine that we’re “nothing” is simmilar to try to lift a weight that’s too heavy for us – this can makes us stronger than we are, cross our boundaries, even though we may never be able to lift it ourself. This way we can get rid as much of our “self” as possible but there will always be something…

Leo Gura says:

No! You are nothing literally, not figuratively.

The contradiction exists because the I creates it. Get rid of the I and the contradiction goes too. It’s a false contradiction. It’s a defense mechanism. You cannot understand no-self via the self. You get this? That’s the whole game the I plays! That’s why it’s such a well-concealed illusion, you see the contradiction and conveniently stop looking for the truth because you’re satisfied you’ll never find it looking in this direction. But the truth lies exactly in the direction you think is ridiculous to look.

Piotr says:

ok, I can agree that from the level of englihtenment the contradictions are not contradictions, but all statements are true – “There’s no I”, “I will be happy”, “I will know the truth”.

It’s like non-paralell and non-crossing lines in 3d. in 2d this two sentences are contradictory yet in 3d not.

And we can say that the “I” before and “I” after enlightenment are two different “Is”. We could theoretize that there will be no “I” at all but this makes less sense because an enlightened person will still use phrases like “I want some beer” and there will be a subject FEELING those promised happiness and SEEING the true. There’s no better way refering to this subject as “I”, but after some tuning

But it’s also important to add that this is a religious-like approaching things. We cannot prove it logicaly, so we can only sense it/ belive it whatever you call it… The difference is we’re meant to experience it being alive. Maybe that’s the reason why it’s called “spirituality”.

And yet, despite of this discussion, and despite being a non-religious, agnostic type of person, I’m still willing to check out what is behind the courtain

PS. Id’l like to hear the enlightenment story from Andy, but we cannot exchange emails through the forum, could you contact us somehow, like sending him my email for instance. I’d appreciate that.

John says:

Leo, hi.

I loved the video and I have experienced clarity at one stage myself for a number of years and it was bliss, beautiful and complete truth as you put it, I forgave all the people who had done me wrong in the past in a heart beat(because I became aware there is no such thing as wrong, only actions that effect other people) and nothing could touch me emotionally at all no matter how offensive they were, as well as all the other benifts you state. There was one thing that I couldnt sherk inside myself Though, that was this ‘wanting to ease my family’s pain’ I tried my hardest to explain but of course this never works and this experience can only ever but achieved by themselves as you say. But non the less I thought I would go back into the ‘system’ get a ‘proper job’ but lead by example that you can have enlightenment and operate in that environment. I have to do serious work on myself everyday in terms of yoga and meditation to de stress in order to stay ‘sane’ in the clearly ‘insane’ modern day environment. My question is Leo and I would love it to hear your opinion – can you be enlightened and have a 9-5 job? My theory is, if the likes of Donald trump did this video, a lot more people would follow wouldn’t they? As people sell there souls to the system if a leader or someone on top of the pile were to then tell people it was all a sham let’s change our ways then surley more people would follow? Can you be enlightened and raise a family in this modern day society?

Many thanks

Leo Gura says:

Yes, you can have a 9-5 job. Yes, you can raise a family. The question is, why the do you want a 9-5 job? That’s like a slave asking me, “Hey, Leo… if I stop being a slave, can I still pick cotton?”

If there is work that really matters, you will do it after enlightenment even better than before. 9-5 says nothing about the value or passion of your work. It just says you work for the sake of work, which is silly.

John says:

Appreciate your comment and perspective Leo. Thanks

John says:

Also Leo,

What is Suiside? I know it is a low vibration and unconscious act as the body does not want to die but you are enlightened and there is no death, where does it leave that question?

I philosophise a lot and read a lot but it does seem to be a bit of a taboo subject which aloy have stayed away from.

Many thanks again Leo

Lucy says:

Hi Leo
Thank you for your video.
My ego or sense of “I” seems strongest when embarrassed.
My question is during our 1000 hours work, do you think the “volume of the ego” gradually becomes diminished? Or do you expect it to be like an on/off switch?
Lucy x

Leo Gura says:

It depends. People report different experiences. There is gradual understanding but then there seems to be that final moment when the illusion is finally realized without doubt. It’s also very possible to use this work to aggrandize the ego and become even more egotistical by believing that you are now “spiritual” or special! So if you start the work, it’s a good idea to finish it. We don’t need any more spiritual woo-woo people around who think they are the shit.

Maria says:

I am excited about doing this. you were right about some of the reactions. I did already see behind the government and cultures and religions and holidays and moved past those things, I am excited to try to see what it will be like to understand that I do not exist. I already had to unravel the stories I was brought up with to rewrite my own, now I can begin to take them all apart and end the struggle I have felt driven to fight, never understanding even why. I would thank you if I existed… I think lol

leelee says:

Self = Awareness


The what that is aware is not physical. Is that what you’re saying? What is real in the physical sense is the feeling from I AM this or I AM that. You are not the this or the that but the I AM. The stories we build around the I AM are what creates our experiences.

Ninos says:

What bothers me about this idea is that unlike your other videos that are very logical. You break things down to its simplest form of psycology. You tell us why things happen, how they happen, use our conscious mind. In this video over one hour long you didn’t tell us how you came up with this theory. Simply you told us how we will feel and why we will feel this way. You are saying this truth is true because Leo says so and this is how it is. You just had a video on false profits. I hope in your next video you tell us why this is true, and not tell us to meditate about this idea for 1,000 hrs or ten thousand hours until we are enlightened.

You are throwing me a curve ball and you are a pitcher that throws fast balls right down the middle, that’s why I like you. Now you want me and all your followers to think about this for one thousand hours when you can tell them to help the world around them be a better place. Tell us to mentor some inner city youth, help orphans, help the poor, help drug addicts get off drugs, prosititue to find a better way of living. These and many other issue seem better use of time then 10,000 hours of contimplating our non-existence. I am still going to filter the things you teach and take the good and leave the bad. Some people seem to buying this idea hook line and sinker. God help them.

Latifa says:

what I want to understand, and I left the same comment on youtube is where is the soul? is there? and if we’re hallow, then when we acknowledge that, who is acknowleging it?
I am a muslim, and this video have reminded me of the suffist spirituel stories that I heard about, people couldn’t understand that and they end up killing them, cuz they have accused them of rebelling against God!!! Don’t know about all this, but I believe in (again I know that there is no such thing as beliefs) is that there is a bigger truth.

Ninos says:


You make a valid point in that this enlightenment is like my beliefe in Jesus. I don’t believe in him cause I was told to by my parents. I thought about it. I contimplated all my options. I then choose Christianity as the best choice. So is this enlightenment differnt then my Christianity? Is Leo’s religion better then mine, or mine better then his?

Iulian says:

I am interested in knowing how old you are.
First of all, Leo has no religion, be dosen’t hold beliefs you can observe that by his videos.
And secondly, even if he did, what kind of question is that? “Is Leo’s religion better than mine”? That’s why i asked you about your age.
My friend there is no better or worse, in fact no one knows what is accurate and what not.
Religion is a whole different topic, it’s a hours-long disscussion

Lucas says:

I believe I understand what you have said in this video, but there is one thing that my mind cannot let go of.

You did state that we are nothing and everything. The one thing keeping me from progressing here is my sense of position. Sure, I don’t exist. This body is simply this thing made up of other things that processes these senses. Yet I have a sense of location. I am obviously not the body. If I cut off an arm, My location doesn’t change. That arm isn’t and never was mine anyway.

How much can I cut down before “I” actually move? What is preventing me from looking through another beings eyes here?

Leo Gura says:

The real “self” has no position. Nothingness has no position or location.

To understand this fully, you need to become enlightened. The logical mind doesn’t like these things and cannot understand them.

Ninos says:


I am merely agreeing with the comment that Leo’s theory that we don’t exist is like my christian religion. He can’t prove it. He is asking the question about the meaning of life. Why we are here? What are we? What is our existence about? He has come up with an answer that is different then my answer. Either we are both wrong or one of us is right. We can’t both be right.

What Leo is talking about is not human psycology. He is speaking of a belief. Religion and spiritually are both beliefe. I got my belief threw historical written accounts of history and my own judgement. Where did Leo get this theory.
I am 40 yrs old.

Bob says:

Perfect, has not been conveyed with this level of consice clarity before.

Sending thanks and deep regard

Naomi says:

What exciting times we live in- a personal development guru going straight for the crux of the matter.

About a year ago I started incorporating into my meditations a question:
“what part of me is NOT the story” like, my knee, my hand- it put some distance between me and the drama.
Three weeks ago I tried it again, to no avail. I just sat there for a bit and suddenly the question flipped:
“What part of me IS the story”? None. Except a well developed center in me- it completely disconnected my body, for instance, from the story of my existence. It became a neutral machine, so to speak.

Thank you for this video.

Leo Gura says:


Tuvan says:

So does this mean i am ment to be spirtually enligthened or not, do i have any input to make on this, since there is not an i?

Leo Gura says:

No one knows the future. If you do decide to do the work and succeed, it will have been not because of any choice on your part. If you don’t decide to do the work, it is also not because of any choice on your part. So whatever you choose, that’s what it will be. But you are not in control of anything. I suggest you “choose” to do it Then it would have been your destiny all along!

Michael says:

Leo, just a thought: perhaps there are veils. Opening the first one may reveal what is spoken of in this video but maybe there is more to be discovered; so the Truth could change a fair bit upon enlightenment – after all that pesky number 3 does come up a bit in the ancient stories.

Anyway, edging closer to my question: hardly any of us are prepared to even consider this notion of not existing. And, those that pursue enlightenment generally come across as more than odd; so they hardly encourage others to wake up. So, just like you have planted seeds here, perhaps there are more practical and acceptable ways of planting seeds amongst the heard of heart. To that end, if you were to name an off-the-shelf method that could edge people closer to at least improving their spiritual open-mindedness, what would it be? For example, do any of the things like Taoism, Rosicrucianism, or Kaballah etc resemble this method / empirical research you are proposing?

…for the purposes of this, please try to leave the “us/we/I/you” do not exist paradox alone!

Leo Gura says:

Well actually… I haven’t told you guys this yet, but after the illusion of self is broken, there is a whole chain of deeper and deeper enlightenments which are possible, all of which are Truer and Truer. But breaking into no-self is the most important step. After that the mind is liberated to do whatever.

In this video you got like 5% of what’s possible. But you will not understand anything beyond this until you break out of the self.

Mark says:

This is truly amazing and no surprise, so much looking forward to this!

Joanna says:

I dont know anythink anymore.
When i started watching your videos i experienced a few days later a feeling of peace, serenity. Like suddenly everything is clear, i felt smarter and calmer, and then something happened and i cannot get to that point again.
I feel like the more i watch your videos the more confused i get. I miss that pacefulness.

Also this video reminded me that many years ago i woke up one day with the strangest feeling like i was so aloof…it’s hard to explain this… Like I (and i couldnt identify that I, i couldnt recognize myself) was so far from my body
I remember i felt like my mom was not my mom my house was not my house, my friends were like strangers … Whom i knew hahha
It was wierd…

Leo Gura says:

That’s because you were asleep and now you’re being shaken awake. Of course it doesn’t feel peaceful. Peace is not possible for you at all right now. It will take years of work to reach peace. But fear not, you were never truly in peace before. You were just so unconscious it felt peace-like. That was not sustainable. Now you have the option to pursue true peace, if you want to do the hard work.

If personal development was easy and peaceful, everyone would naturally do it.

Ramona says:

Whatever drug you are on, I want to try it too. I can wait for the next video to amuse myself: listening to someone who did not experience enlightenment, but talks about it as if he knows what it means. I really respect your opinion about things you truly tasted: loosing weight, learning how to flirt, how to get fit, how to study, etc. Now you make fool of yourself lecturing us, in an arrogant way, about things you know shit. Hilarious.

cck says:

i believe when he first uploaded the old videos of: how to flirt, how to have a healthy relationship…etc he wasn’t the same person with the same thoughts of the moment of shooting this video, so i believe that this enlightenment is a new experience to him, and he loved to share it with us, even the most conscious and aware persons experience new things and new experiences everyday! and this is for both cases, you believe what he says or not, this is a fact!

Kelsey says:

Are there any external circumstances that aligns oneself (in preparation for destruction) more appropriately than others? For instance, being outside, farming, connecting with nature, less workload, etc.? “I” will be graduating from university in June and have the luxury of situating my body wherever.

Secondly, how do you grapple with trusting this concept? Even when I think, “it’s probably just the ego wanting to preserve itself” doubts arise. “My” guess is that it dissolves over time with commitment/ work?

Lastly, does this concept make more sense when depressed? Although relating to this concept can be problematic, for simplicity sake let’s say “Kelsey” is depressed. When “I” heard this concept, “I” felt only the above objection because “I” feel aware that most pleasure in my life has come from addictions, and the ultimate answer to the most important questions are not easily available. Hence the depression.

Hoping to hear back from you! Thank-you Leo-body for this video

Ben says:

Hey Leo,

this is an interesting and inspiring idea. But I’m struggling with some questions. Maybe you stumbled upon some of them as well during your self enlightment work. I would be glad hearing your perspective on this:

– Whats the point of doing that enlightment work if my ego doesn’t exist? Who am I doing it for?
– And what about all the other “good” stuff? Why should I go to the gym? Why should I eat healthy food? I’m doing all of this for my ego, right? But why trying to keep up all that stuff, if I could as well just watch reality and life happen?
– Why should I even care about this? What does happiness even mean, if I’m nothing and everything? Is there any true value in happiness?
– How can “I” even have goals, if I have no control at all?
– where’s the line between “stop caring about anything” and “letting the ego die”?
– You’re arguments seem to be based on “stories” (happiness, goals, fear,…) too. Is that the case because you’re communicating with words?

I think it would be great having a discussion about this with you.

Greetings from Germany


Leo Gura says:

There is only a relative point if you care about truth or happiness. If you like to suffer, then by all means carry on with your current life.

All life is pointless. The question is how do you want to live it?

Dalo says:

All life is pointless. The question is how do you want to live it? That’s it! That’s my first step to enlightened .

Ben says:

Thanks for your response, Leo. Actually your recently released video about “What To Do Next After Learning About Enlightenment” clarified a lot for me. I felt like you were directly talking to me in order to answer my question

I’m still having some questions, but I’m trying to figure that out by some meditation sessions.

Keep it up. I follow your newsletter since a couple of months now and I really enjoy it. Thank you.

Alice says:

First I want to say thank you for all your work and service for people!
This video is very interesting. I’ve spent all my life so far on searching the truth and I found it. It’s a chellange to live up to it on daily basis and you are so spot on talking about turning off our ego. Everything is energy that makes perfect scene that technically we are really nothing but a compilation of energy in a certain way just like everything around. And energy is light. The darkness is simply absence of light. When we replace fear with unconditional love for everybody and everything around we attract that kind of energy to ours and that reaction creates that state of peace. A lot of theories are base on rewards or fear but the truth is only unconditional selfless love bring that enlightment.
Wish you to discover the truth for yourself and please keep sharing with us!
You are very courageous good man! Spasibo ogromnoye!!!

Dennis says:

Interesting hypothesis Leo. Kill yourself to find truth and happiness. At this time of my life, a senior citizen, I can analyze theory and know if such theory really holds water and will guide the masses to a tranquil and happy life. Before I expound on my thoughts, I will give examination on my current happy and tranquil life at 63 years of age.

First, soul mates do exist. I married a 10 in physical beauty. Her physical beauty drew me to her. It was her common sense, faintness, love, and courage in adversity, which has kept me as her husband for 39 years. Second, I have passive income where I will never have to work again. Third, I am a member of 2 gyms and exercise 6 days a week. I am an avid reader of nonfiction books on history, psychology, psychoanalyses, and other sciences, which provoke analyzes.

This is a short synopses of why I have a happy, tranquil, and a joyous life:

First, I know the human psyche strives to be in a state of equilibrium. To be in a steady state. In life, this state cannot be achieved because life is conflict. There are basic things a biological unit, a human being, can carry through as a process to attempt a steady state. Do not have any credit cards and credit card debt. Own the vehicle you are using for transportation. The only debt a person should have is for housing, food, and utilities. If you can’t pay “cash” for a thing, you don’t need it. As far as for recreation, exercise and read books to educate yourself.

Second, know each day is the beginning of a new life. Don’t be afraid to make change to your life.

Third, I believe I exist. I believe my existence is as a grain of sand in relation to the universe. I believe the universe is not happenstance. I understand that there is one and true living God. I am not religious. I AM a follower of Christ Jesus. I believe in the resurrection. YOU BELIEVE AS YOU PLEASE. I AM NOT YOUR KEEPER. This belief systems has worked for me.

Leo Gura says:

Sounds nice, but who are trying to convince, me or you? Your life cannot be happy under the illusion of ego. You’re still in mental torment throughout the day. Your thoughts still plague you even if everything is going smooth. And if things should every stop going smoothly for you, hell shall reign. The first and biggest lie that the ego tells itself is that life is good under the ego’s reign.

If you are a follower of Christ, then don’t you think you should do as he did and become Enlightened?

Mark says:

Eagerly awaiting the next lot of video’s and embarking on the honest & challenging inward journey. The thought of removing ‘self’ alone will be great reward, bring on the Truth.

Mark7 Adelaide Australia

Elizabeth says:

This reminds me of “The Disappearance of the Universe”

Nina says:

“I” am nothing but the life itself. This means, the only appropriate behaviour is stay silent.

Anuraag Srivastava says:

I am glad that you shared this.
I learnt the same thing at the end of my spiritual journey. Glad I finally found someone who gets it.

Connor says:

I was wondering about one thing in particular. If ego and psyche are so bad and not nessesery for our being at all then why is it created in the first place? There must be some reason for it to exist and i belive it doesn’t exis tjust to make us suffer and that other “bad” stuff and then laught at us for being failure. That would be awesom if you could upclose that thing in next video.

Dalo says:

Excellent point and question!

Asaiah Powers says:

Leo -If women are attracted to personality which is subjective and ths ball the ego is subjective then this ego becoming more objective wouldnt that repulse them?

David Lee says:

Hi Leo,

I stumbled on your page via your meditation video and Im enjoying some of your videos!

However I do have to say the part you mention that an estimate of about 10,000 people are aware of this fact your presenting… is perhaps way over exaggerated. A lot of scientific debates around the hollographic principle as a result of quantum physics experiments and further theories developed (having this odd feeling of de ja vu right now…) do confirm these uncomfortable truths evoking philosophic ideas. What I find though, despite this truth as you mentioned yourself, due to the way our psyche is wired it is hard to make something of this in our everyday life. Not to say we cannot make changes in our lives with this awareness.

I am meditating regularly the past few months and with these truths in mind, I recently had this calming, freeing experience, such as the fear of death leaving me, allowing me to feel that everything is connected. (I was brought up very religiously without the prospect of a soul living on if the body dies, rather being taught that this life is it with a promise of so called everlasting life on earth in the body we have now etc. – So naturally was very afraid of the inevitable.

David Lee says:

Thank you for sharing the information you have, im looking forward to listing to many more of your videos!

Denis says:

Great stuff as always Leo. I see a lot of strong reactions to this video in the comments above. I myself felt a lot of intrigue when you revealed the truth. I started chipping away at my ego about 5 months ago since I have been “shaken awake” as you said and while it is challenging at times I enjoy it, and it has already improved my life and I am only barely scratching the surface. One of the first things that came to my mind when you revealed the ultimate truth is one of my aunts. She spoke some of the same words you did in this video. My aunt was clinically dead for about 30 minutes about 12 years ago when she had surgery. She described feeling very serene and she said all the petty emotions of every day life were simply no longer there. She has been a very different person since that experience. Her view of life is very different since that experience. Since this happened I have done a lot of research on this subject and most people who have experienced a clinical death described their experience almost exactly like my aunt did. Some have even said that it was a very life changing and enlightening experience. It kind of made me wonder if we all become enlightened when these bodies fail us. Although I would like to experience it while I am still alive.

Cindy says:

So… This was interesting, as of recently I belive I laid most of my ego to rest. I had this perception of how fabulous I am/was, and then a few weeks ago while meditating (Im a beginner) and feeling (or what my mind thought it would be) in a moment, this vast mass of infinite actuality (universe) in the greater scheme of things I was “nothing”. All that I perceive is not truth, my perceptions are “my” truths and only I see myself as such but it never made it real.
It’s almost like I had all these expectations and time and time again I felt the disappointment of those expectations never realized, more fantasy than reality. I then realized that reality is only “now”, this moment; and as I sit in this place in my kitchen responding to your video.
I actually said I was nothing to a relative in conversation yesterday and she felt bad for me. I didn’t try to explain because I don’t feel the burden of her perception, but to help her feel better I said “it’s my truth and Im not ready to explain”, actually Leo I don’t think I can.
It’s sad to let go of the “dreams” but to live in the moment and enjoy that moment is priceless.
Thanks for the video, it helps….

Amanda says:

Dear Leo,

Thank you for this video. It is the second time I have watched it. I used to use psychedelic drugs to try to understand infinity and the universe better, but one time I had a strange glimpse of something else, which was maybe, just maybe what you are talking about. It was that even though I would die I knew that the next beings born would be seeing through eyes as I am now. As if I would never die because consciousness would continue on. When I tried to explain it to my friends they didn’t get it. Whatever it was, I thought it was beautiful and I never have forgotten it. When I saw this video it brought me back to that experience. I don’t really care if I am off at this point. All I am interested and open to is finding the truth. I am definitely at the beginning of a very probable painful journey. I would love to end the suffering I experience and all the stories and lies I tell myself on a daily basis. So again, thank you for shooting this video.

Mikael says:

Great! I like the fact that I’m not me! What a relief!!


Kay says:


I think I am the one among those one million.
I noticed that you expected mostly negative emotions from your viewers when you broke the news. For me it was all positive feelings like excitement and joy when you said it. I am feeling all of those rewards you mentioned. they are for real.
I wasn’t feeling like this just couple of months ago. Your videos have been invaluable to me.
Sometimes I don’t know how to be thankful enough.

Leo Gura says:

Good! Let’s see if you’ve really got what it takes

Edd says:

I understood your video. think I had my 1000 hours spent on this . wondering if some other illusions got that stuff

Craig Clayton says:

If I get the jist of things, you’re saying humans don’t have souls. I’ve watched the video three times and I fail to see how/why you’re so confident of the “truth” that there is no self. You talk about illusions; well, maybe you’re the one hallucinating. If you want to talk about illusions, than you have to admit that there can be the illusion of an illusion. I just wish I understood how you’re so confident. When it comes down to truth, I think the truth is “I don’t know” …God wants us to think we’re not being watched, because… you are what you are when you’re not being watched. Why would/do you have faith in the fact that death is the end? Why would you hope that a person has no self that transcends death? Why do the odds not seem at least 50-50 to you? Do you really feel as though you know something I don’t?

Anuraag says:

I don’t think you clearly understood him. I am not sure if you did. But to answer your questions:
1. He isn’t saying that humans do not have soul. He is saying you are a ‘soul’ instead of a body. Obviously the word ‘soul’ is highly misinterpreted or misused. But according to the Buddhist Texts, Vedic Indian Yogi texts soul is exactly that-nothing and everything. There is a bit of paradox that takes some time to understand hence I don’t blame you for the confusion. So YOU your true self exists. But it is not YOU the ego rather its existence itself. I am not sure if that really clears it up. It is difficult to put it in language.
2. Death cannot be an end and he doesn’t even think that death is the end because he clearly stated that we are immortal but we as in NOT the ego we rather the real self. Again difficult to put it in words.
I hope that clarifies. Your notions could definitely be right and his wrong. There is no way to prove it cause the truth he talks about can only be realized not taught. Again forgive any mistake because of the semantics. Obviously you are free to believe whatever you want.

Craig Clayton says:

That does help.

I thought he was implying that the true self is the universe and that we are all one and do not have individual souls. and that once a person considers others as themself, they lose the fear of death. So when you say “you, your true self exists” are you talking about an individual soul or one soul that we all share?

Craig Clayton says:

I really would appreciate a reply to this…. even if you see me as an oblivious idiot. What am I missing? Whether it’s a reply from you or Leo. I’m truly interested.

Anuraag says:

I am not really a person who is good with words. But I hope this helps:
Search on google “lifewithoutacenter non duality”. and read the article about what is non duality until Leo explains about this more. I think that article can really help.
READ that. It does explain well everything hopefully- the paradox that is difficult to understand.

Anas says:

hello Leo

Thank you for your effort

So our existence is like a river, each river have a name, but which part of the river is the river it self, each part of the river are changing at any time, can we take a part and tell that’s the river? NO, it’s exist and it’s not exist at the same time

NNN says:

since i found this site by accident;i haven’t went through all your posts while posting above comment but after reading through comments and other videos understood you are also taken the path of meditation only.

John Ward says:

Hi Leo,

Did you ever notice that a three quarters moon is shaped like a lemon.

By the way, I’ll take my truth with a “lower case t”.

I think your video did make me nervous, (in an important way) cause now I got clever fever! You know, my way, of being defensive.

Thanks and enjoy,

P.S. Is it possible to do all of the effort necessary, towards enlightenment in one hour…If I work really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really,
hard!! You can see how clever/defensive your ideas have made me….this good….thanks again.

Leo Gura says:

With a sass-mouth like that it will take you more like 10,000 hours

joey says:

Hi Leo,

Thanks for all your videos. This is a new subject for me and I’m becoming very interested in it already. I just wanted to ask you a few things.

You say spiritual enlightenment makes us unafraid of death, but in what way can it console us for the death of others? I myself am not particularly afraid of ‘my’ own death (or that of my body) what I fear more is the death of my parents.

You also mention the stories that try to explain reality. What is the explanation for the universe and reality to have come into existence? I get how stories in the bible such as genesis are stories written by people that try to explain reality. But what about scientific research which shows the universe expanding etc. ?

I’m looking forward to learning more.

Take care

Leo Gura says:

Yes, you are afraid of your own death, don’t lie!

No scientific explanation will ever tell you what existence itself is. Science says nothing about this. Yes, the universe is supposedly expanding, but this says nothing about what the universe actually is.

Also consider, that which you call “the universe” is just an image and an auditory sensation in your field of awareness.

John Ward says:

Dear Leo,

I noticed that my comment (lemon moon) was not posted. I apologize if my being flip was offensive…I was simply being silly (after you tried to scare the self out of me).

Zen does seem to have its humor. In fact, my sense is, a lot of Zen is about turning the “self” into a banana peel, that the “self” can slip on. In Zen, isn’t enlightenment, really, the selfs prat fall. (I’m not saying you do Zen training. However, to me, it seems that you do something that might be similar to Zen.)

My only concern is free will. From what I understand, you have dedicated your life to (qualia/enlightenment). I have dedicated my life to (qualia/free will).

Like you, I don’t believe their is a self that exists (has any agency). However, I do believe their is free will. You have your paradoxes, I have mine.

I believe the “self” is actually the opposite of free will. It must be destroyed. Everything, action, belief, that points us towards a self (myself) is not free. It is simply a narrative a memetic copy.

I think the core difference between your journey into (qualia/enlightenment) and mine into (qualia/free will). Is the difference between traditional ideas about transcendence and what I choose to call (quancendence). Simply put, quancendence is the pursuit of measurable (actions/skills) that go beyond anything your “self” thought was possible for your “self” to do. In my version of (free will training), we get the benefit of measurement instead of, merely,

Tell me if I am wrong, but it seems (enlightenment training) requires a teacher, requires a relationship. Because in enlightenment, there is no self and no free will, only the random crossing of paths (student crosses teachers path).

To be completely honest, I don’t believe that we have “true” free will. I call, what we are capable of, “soft” free will, because true free will would require us have a self, be a self.


Leo Gura says:

All of that is just story and beliefs. Not fact. If you sit down and start investigating your consciousness, you will start to see more and more that there is no self and consequently no free will. This is not a theory, this a fact of consciousness which you can discover for yourself if you would like. Advancing pet theories is of no value here. That is ego trying to make itself feel significant.

Natasha says:

Privet Leo,

The truth you revealed in this video didn’t shock me – we are just so grounded in our humanity, it’s hard to wrap our carnal minds around anything like this. Interestingly, Jesus claimed to be the Way, the Truth, and the Life. If He is the Truth, and Truth and Reality are the same, that makes Christ reality by definition. At least He is to me

I do have a couple questions here:

Are those who actively work on achieving enlightment under the guidance of a master guru advised what the truth is before they take on the journey of discovering it? Would knowing what the truth is ahead of time then somehow spoil the process of getting enlightened?

If getting deeper into understanding reality, objectively, requires moving farther away from ‘personal’, where then do I place the Creator in this picture? You mentioned in one of your posts you hold a position of an agnostic. Do you believe in intelligent design (Creation) and the role of a Designer?

Also, I had an experience while in my Mother’s womb, in which I was observing the surroundings inside of the womb. I also remember being born. I didn’t understand what was going on, of course, but I remember being pushed along a dark tight tunnel, struggling to get through, staying stuck for a moment, and finally emerging into the light grasping for air. I remember all this very vividly. Are these stories something my ego told me, even though no particular thought was attached to what I experienced at the moment?

Thank you!

abhay says:

Hey Leo,
First of all I want to thank you very much. You are doing a great job and I learned a lot from your videos.I have no words. The deep understanding you have is awesome and you are a true learned person I have ever seen in my life.
The best quality in you is that you can express or say (by language) that you feel .It’s what great personality does. You just recall me of BUDDHA the spiritual leader of India. He is also the same. He realized the truth but he knows that it is hard to convey and he also wanted every one to realize hence he told some path. These paths are not the truth but by following these you can realize the unexpressed and unsaid feelings of yours . The same you are doing.Thanks a lot.

Hey man I wanted your views on universe and energy(absolute Idealism or Duality or Plurality or Relativism etc etc ). As I am from India and I know some very interesting theories but I want to know your viewpoint.

Make one video or U can mail me if possible(in case not making video)

Thanks man from heart.

Nicki says:

Leo, I love this.
Thanks for spreading the word this takes courage.
‘ Life’s empty and meaningless, and it’s empty and meaningless that its empty and meaningless’. Love the work you share with us. I get it and
It’s a gift.

spyro says:

Ty Leo, it all makes sense now

tanya says:

If I did the work to become enlightened then it would be useless because I dont exist. And even the rewards wouldnt matter because I dont exist – the feelings that I feel arent real.
Doesnt it cancel itself out?

Ashray says:

Whether you know truth or not, doesn’t mean you can escape from future events and situation. It should not be used as an excuse to escape from getting self work

benjamin Schlufter says:

When i am not real, how do i know that the reality is real ? every evidence for reality comes from something who is not real, so why shoud be the reality real ?

Neil says:

My ego is worried about providing for my physical body, IF it were to destroy itself. What does a spiritually enlightened person do? How does the body make choices? And how would a spiritually enlightened person interact with a society that, as you said, is designed for minimum conscious behavior? How would i interact within a marriage if i didn’t exist, but she still “did”?

I would assume that once enlightened, the body would instinctually perform the life purpose that it was put on earth to accomplish in the first place? And maybe everything would just flow?

I think that in order for an ego to develop this self-destructing mechanism, it needs to leverage itself to a position where it has no other choice but to destruct. In other words, the ego needs significant proof that everything is going to be okay once it’s gone. Since the only mechanism we have to destroy the ego is the ego itself, a person is required to first convince itself, with contradicting stories, that enlightenment is the ONLY path. Basically undoing all of the programming that we have done to our psyche over our entire life… I can see why that would take lots of time! thoughts?

Natasha says:

I like to observe Buddhist monks in public and noticed how unassuming and ‘fluid’ these people appear. They never thank anyone, never talk or make eye contact with anyone (except with each other) – as though people around them don’t even exist. They seem to be completely detached from humanity. They don’t marry and don’t have kids – perhaps that is an empty pursuit to the enlightened as well.

I’ve been listening to an enlightened guru from India on YouTube and he said we do, in fact, exist outside of our thoughts. So, I’m still trying to figure out which is more accurate then – “I think, therefore I exist” or “I exist, therefore I think”?

Nina says:

Hy Natasha,
could you post the link to the youtube Video?

Natasha says:

His name is Sadhguru, the videos posted by Isha USA. He said we gather our body and mind (thoughts) to add to the already existent piece of life. When asked what it means to be enlightened, he said it’s like coming back home – to that part of our existence apart from our physical body and mind.

Nina says:

Thank you, Natasha, I found him on youtube.

Leo Gura says:

Haha, you think Sadhguru will appease you? He will lead you to exactly the same place: no self. And this will cause you discomfort regardless, because YOU are never going to like the idea of NO YOU.

In this work, you should seek the most disruption to your self that you can handle.

I like Sadhguru, he’s cool, but notice that what you actually did was fall into an ego trap. Now you’re nice and comfy. Comfy doesn’t produce enlightenment. Comfy is non-enlightenment, the same shit you’ve been doing your whole life. Enlightenment will destroy all your most cherished beliefs, so you ain’t gonna escape that. If you don’t deliberately stop clinging to them, your enlightenment will take 20 years or more.

Don’t get lost in the teacher or the teaching. You’ll have to do all the heavy lifting yourself here if you really want enlightenment.

Marco says:

Actually Leo what has most upset me of enlightenment it’s not the truth of the no self but when you say that we do not have free will and that our destiny is pre-determined: in that moment you left me truly naked, deprived of what I thought was the greatest of the powers of man that is to be able to be creators of our reality. How can I in this state have a feeling to put myself into work to reach the spiritual awakening? Sadhguru instead has shown me a different shade of this: yeah probably we are not worth much more than an ant (as you say in an another video) and we don’t have free will (more than some things are predetermined by our ‘software’), but we can still change the direction of our lives by mastering our body, mind and finally energies as he says (I like to think we don’t have free will but we do have will power . Besides I’ve better understand that we don’t have to kill desires because they are part of human nature and they will ever be there, rather we have to make them conscious (and not unconscious that is those that are dictated by ego). Yeah maybe now I’m a bit more nice, but in this context I feel like to put myself in search. I really don’t understand you on this point: how can depression and bad states put myself any closer to the universe? Besides I expect five exams in a month, I couldn’t just stay depressed haha

Thank you Leo and sorry for my english

Leo Gura says:

You, You, You, You…


You can window-dress it however you like, but this fact is unavoidable in this work. In fact, it is the entire work!

Every time you think of yourself, just remember that you are a lie. A big fat lie. A non-existent entity. You have about as much reality as Santa Claus or Batman. That is you! A fiction!

Will this make you depressed? At first, yes! That’s good! That depression is a sign of progress. It means you’re actually starting to realize what is being said. Imagine Batman discovering for the first time that he’s actually only a comic book character. Yeah, that would be a depressing day. Do you realize that your ENTIRE life up to this point has been one giant sham? Every single action you’ve taken has been designed to distract you from the fact that you’re an illusion. Your education, your job, every relationship you’ve ever been in, your family, every movie you ever watched, every book you ever read, every thought you’ve ever had, every emotion, etc. You see this, yes? Your depression is designed to distract you, which is exactly what it did successfully.

I don’t think you appreciate yet how serious this work is. This is hardcore shit. Why do you think enlightened people are so rare? They were the only ones crazy enough to actually destroy their personal identities. But the good news is, your personal identity is a complete fabrication to begin with, so destroying it isn’t as bad as it first seems. In fact it is the greatest joy. But you need to have very deep wisdom to see that.

spyro says:

With an environmental science degree, my mind approached what you were saying in the video with logic and with what science has proved so far about the nature of humans.
Wasn’t expecting anything, but something happened in a split second, like a shift, a weight lifted, something cleared and much to say am much happier now, i laugh (rarely laughed before), don’t care about what people think of me, (used to care a lot), used to feel empty, but not anymore. Hope this will last, its awesome.

Thank you Leo

So, lets say that someone gets it
Is it possible to loose this, by doing the everyday routine?
or by having relationships with people who haven’t been there?
What is next after that? can you be more enlightened than that?

spyro says:

After a brief search i found out that what i experienced isn’t enlightenment.
A fully enlightened human will find that all humans are enlightened and all relationships are good. Am very happy that i was lucky to experience this in my lifetime, whatever this is, with hard work and meditation i will achieve truly peace of mind and whole happiness.
ty again Leo

Neil says:

This video sent me into a mild depression.

Jacqueline says:

Leo, once again you speak to me ( that doesn’t exist! ) The ego destruction is all I need! Bring it on Leo!!

Ali says:

Thank you Leo for the video, I agree with you, that is where it starts once you enter upon enlightenment, no matter how you will try you will never get the truth because actually the mission why we are here is to enjoy the journey of looking for the truth we might enjoy reaching some hints of it, but no one can have it

George says:

What you are proposing is the annihilation of the self by denying its existence, which is not only anarchic but also impossible. I admit I am selfish and ego-driven from time to time, as are many other people, but it is impossible to eradicate the self as our lives depend on it. In other words we cannot not be ourself – its physically and mentally unattainable, regardless of the amount of investigation. Hate to break it to you Leo, as I’ve found your other videos very useful and you seem well intentioned. But the philosophy here is fundamentally flawed and, though clever, interesting and fascinating, nothing more than a psychological paradox.

Leo Gura says:

Look at that ego squirm like an eel in Astroglide. Don’t you feel dirty just writing the above?

George Lawson says:

I don’t feel dirty because there’s obviously no me to feel dirty It’s a useful way to detach from life and an age-old Buddhist technique to create selflessness and acknowledge the truth that this life isn’t just about us. But we all have something to give- if we lived our whole lives without giving anything to anyone or to nature then THAT would be selfish and egotistical. So the self isn’t a negative thing, or a squirming eel (I like you’re metaphor by the way) because it is the only medium through which we can give and do some sort of good in the world. You’re not selfish because you’ve done it; you’ve given the world these awesome personal development videos (even this very challenging one). Tell me, how could you have possibly made these videos if you didn’t exist?

Tim says:


First, great video. I love how you take someone through the point and the questions they may have.
What I don’t understand is when you say – achieve this so you can be happy and know the truth. Well why would that be rewarding if there is no “you”. It seems like in the end nothing can give you happiness because there’s no “you”. So why not just commit suicide? It seems like the real truth is society is trying to keep you from committing suicide with falsehoods.

George Lawson says:

Exactly. If the self doesn’t exist then what’s the point?

Pooja says:

Hey Leo,
I haven’t finished watching this video yet. But I have a question in my mind, and would like to clear it and then go back to the video. If all this is illusion as its said, what should I really strive for in life ? Will it be conquering my materialistic goals or following and experimenting on spirituality to the T ? Which will make life more fulfilling that i would like to take on forever, maybe till the end of time ( if time is not counted as an illusion).

Thanks !

Andrew says:

Leo, I have a diffrent question. I hope you don’t get upset, so here it is: do you actually consider yourself to be enlightened? Do you consider yourself to be a buddha? I am asking you this because you wouldn’t be able to tell us all this stuff and be 100% sure about it otherwise. I do believe that you are a enlightened but I want to hear it from you. I want to know your version.
Thank you in advance!

Marjorie says:

This presentation has bought new thought to my being. I was excited,
I want to take the self out, because i never knew myself, not only that, i just never understood why people see psychologist, psychiatrics, i just never understood the many ways of why decisions made to seduce someones intelligence occured. I have also wondered why people thinks so many brutal ideas to cheat, and why it is so hard to go to school, to do wondrous amazing things to enlighten themselves.

I hold truth that the subconscious mind takes you to an awareness of being in the present.

faysal says:

well leo what you said is great you said everything is told are just stories so what you are telling about is story too you said just forget about believes so what your saying is the believe human is a believe if you wasnt sure what your telling is absolutly right you wouldnot said even a single word but its not about believes its about what is real nd what is not !! the murderer or thief or watever if they do evil activity its a fact a truth that its bad like hell but they still doing that why becoz they believe what they doing is right !! but its not !! you said that just be honest wed thoughts well thought is just a surrounding watever it is its upto our mind wat should we chose bad or gud is just us !!!!!! at last i just want to say its big lol when your decide to journey nd you distination is to usa and your walking to canada !! confusions isnt created by nature the nature and we are clear as mirror but the eyes of minds get dirts its dosn mean nature is dirty !!believing our destinations makes reality and reality is the believes of us !! going deep is great but it dosnt make reallity its just make believe right or wrong its upto us cox there isnt such thing gud or bad or ryt or wrong but the way we use our mind !!!! keep sharing its gud to be heard (Y) appriciated

Ninos says:

TRUTH!!! It’s a interesting concept in that there is only one. Two ideas that are opposite cannot both be true. My sister and I always debate many ideas and she always says it’s my truth. Like everyone has there own truth. Sounds nice. I am 100% convinced that there is only one truth and every thing else is a story made up for a personal reason to run away from the truth.
For instance GOD!!! Many people for some reason are mad at God and would make up a story to convince themselves and others he doesn’t exist. There anger probably is well warranted. Maybe they had some horrible tradagy happen to them and they had to come up with a story to coope with there pain of why God let horrible things happen.
A great example is intelegent design (God) verses evolution. It sounds to me as if Leo does not believe in either one. He has his own truth. The world and universe is so complicated and has so many tiny details that if that detail didn’t exist that organism would die. One example is the giraffe. The giraffe has two sets of pumps on it’s heart because when it is standing the main valve is opened to pump blood to its long neck. And when it bends down to drink water the main valve closes and opens a smaller valve so the blood being pumped doesn’t kill the giraffe. Evolutionist would say that evolved from a explosion of nothing and over millions of years evolved into this complex organism. Leo would say the giraffe doesn’t exist. I say a divine intelligent God made the Giraffe. I believe I am somewhat intelligent. I know for a fact Leo is super intelligent. I also know that scientist that came up with Big Bang are very very intelligent. But if we allow our prejudice against the thought of a God for what ever reason does not take the truth and make it true because we believe it. I am very mad at God. I have had a big falling out with him. I don’t understand him and I am frustrated with him. My intelligence will not allow me to close my eyes and say he doesn’t exist. It’s the same reason I don’t drink or do drugs to make me feel good. I love the truth no matter how ugly it is. I will give it a big sloppy kiss. It might be ugly and smelly but it’s the truth.

Kay says:

Thank you Leo,
Contrary to the idea that all would have negative emotions, mine were very positive and exciting. I have heard of many of the things you mentioned through various sources but you have expanded them and brought them all together. I am perfectly placed at my time of life a personal circumstances to look into this further with you. I am looking forward to it. My one question is where do you stand on helping others. .. serving others? I am vegan and am quite involved in the prevention of animal cruelty. Is it like the airplane instruction where you give yourself oxygen first or can you do both? As I have said, looking forward to tagging along xxx

Leo Gura says:

Serving others is fine as long as you’re not neurotic about it.

Andrew says:

Thanks for the answer! Your silence was enough.

Stacy says:

I am scared

For the past 7 years, I have searched for “Truth”…. In the past year, all my “Beliefs” have come crashing down, and I am left with nothing. I’ve been feeling lost…. Crushed… No value

Although, my “mind”/”self”/”psyche” doesn’t know what to hold on to….. The lack of “self” almost seems hysterically logical.

So essentially the loss of the “stories”…. Or “untruths”…. In itself is comforting, I don’t know were to go from here.

What is the point of life, what is the point of anything physical

Marc says:

Hey Stacey
Obviously I don’t know you but I felt for you when you described how lost you were. In the words of the great Douglas Adams ‘DONT PANIC!’ From one human being (who stopped questioning his existence this morning when a car ran over his foot) to another who needs to know that other human beings who they will never even meet can care about them, I say please try not to worry. This is not the only way. (Leo will hate this. I hope he doesn’t get cross with me). Go Stace!

Gillian Ford says:

Dear Leo,

I found this video incredibly depressing to the point that I just couldn’t face watching or listening to any more of your videos for a while. The whole concept of nothingness touched on an inner fear that I didn’t even know existed or one that I had glossed over until you brought me face to face with it. I felt angry for a while, then depressed, then tried to keep myself occupied whilst all the time knowing that I couldn’t get away from this “truth”. I wanted to disagree with you but I knew in my soul (whatever that may mean) that you are correct and that this is true enlightenment.

But then as I meditated and practiced mindfulness a calmness has come over me and I’m feeling a little more relaxed and coming to terms with this nothingness. I’m now ready to listen to more, so I thank you for all the time and effort you’ve put in to prepare these videos, it is very much appreciated.

Preston says:


It seems in the video you felt many people if not all would be opposed to what you were saying but it was a breath of fresh air to me.

Something that really stood out to me was in your Spirituality vs Religion video you mentioned be depressed at first before coming to this realization. I too have this crazy depression hit me out of no where about a few months ago about life and I too was in fetal position almost crippling. I was questioning everything about life, spirituality and religion. I just find it that a lot of the people I heard about that have enlightenment or experienced it always had depression first. Gives me hope I’m on the right path.

I’m a metaphysical/self help book reader and always question most things, schools systems, marriages, religions, government etc.. I’m not against religion but I never could honestly accept it, a lot things didn’t make sense to me and I couldn’t pretend as though they although there are truths there.

I’m just excited! Every time I start getting depressed or down about how come I can’t accept religion or believe what people around me believe, I come across either a book or a video that gives me relief that it’s ok that I think a little different. I found of course Eckhart Tolle and I also ran across some Jim Carrey videos that speak on it and a director named Tom Shadyac and countless others who seem to share a common theme. I can’t wait to watch your part 2 video I was just so excited after watching this one I had to leave a comment first.


Carolina says:

I am free to be whatever I want to be when I wake up every morning thanks to this new knowledge I have. I am finally touching, understanding (not always accepting) the power of this psyche in me. I can a new better person thanks to the understanding that “myself” is just an illusion, so I can create anything I want!

I am fighting the psyche right now, I have so many questions. The most important one, the more powerful one that doesn’t allow me to keep on fighting my own psyche is this:

I feel like reaching this enlightenment will require me to research and then go alone meditate somewhere until I can destroy my entity, then what if we all go do that? What if we all erase our psyche, I feel like we would be mellow kind of robots without emotions whatsoever, free of the mind…. Little butterflies waiting patiently for the end….. So wouldn’t that be the end of the human race? … Whatever put us here…. Why would that be our final destination, that is what my psyche came up with

Thanks Leo!

Also, I feel like love is very important in this journey. Not the love society usually knows but the deeper meaning of the word. Would you make a video about it? I’m clueless thanks!

Tanner says:


I’ve seen both videos a couple times now, and have done a lot of pondering. Let me know if I’m on the right track. (Sorry for the length, lots of thoughts arise)

So there is no me there is just an awareness. Body’s just move with the natural flow of the universe/reality and I have no say in the matter, simply concepts that are built to make me think I do.

Do actions I think I make actually exist? When you have us nod in the video is my body actually nodding or is it an illusion that makes me think I’m nodding? Is the body nodding just its not me doing it and it’s not mine? Is it simply responding to stimulus in its environment?

If actions do exist, and I am an idea built around them thinking I’m making them, is it the brain creating my false reality?

Or is it that your body is mine as much as it is yours because we don’t exist and it’s just one giant awareness? Thought seems impossible, but is that’s what you’re getting at?

After thought about self help that feels a little regressive:

Say a human doesn’t reproduce as much as another. Is that simply evolution/ the natural flow of things and there is no you that can change that? Would taking your relationship advice be irrelevant because there is no me to set change?

Candy says:

I found your website several days ago and have enjoyed your videos immensely. Then I came to this one. I didn’t feel angry, depressed, scared or any of the other feelings you mentioned. I felt very disappointed and confused. I sat through your other videos feeling good about making changes in my life only to hear I don’t exist. Why would anyone want to do “the work” on themselves when they don’t exist? We are like the trees, the mountains, the rivers, the ocean…..we are part of the earth, and we do exist, mind and body. Leo, I am sixty years old, and I believe that ego goes away with age…when we learn that we don’t know shit when compared to all there is to learn. When our bodies and our looks begin to decay. That’s when ego is gone. You are a very young, intelligent and articulate man. If you are one of the 10K people out of billions in the world that “get it”, I think perhaps you have an ego problem, with all due respect.

Patti Kolhoff says:

confusion confusion confusion
I’m very open minded but totally confused. Most of this video went right over my head (that apparently doesn’t exist?) I might have to watch this a second time.

James says:

Hey Leo.

Upon hearing “the truth”, I felt an overwhelming joy which almost moved me to tears. A sense of Euphoria even! The idea that I am simply a thought resonated so clearly and perhaps my imagination got a little carried away! During the time to let that sink in, I focussed (almost enraptured) on my flicker of thought and felt a profound joy/ relief/ wholeness! I could feel a sensation in and almost above my brain like a weightless presence right around the top where the frontal and parietal lobes meet!

This is not to say I believe it wholly and totally, just because I understand and resonate with the concept. Such identification with it is proof of my ego, also, that I like the idea and haven’t fully embraced the implications. Nonetheless, I’m prepared to follow the path to it’s conclusion.

After studying philosophy and psychology alongside music and various arts for years, stumbling upon your site has been most rewarding. An extensive array of powerful and practical principles, delivered so digestibly! I have been destroying and building my ego for years in the pursuit of experiencing every facet of existence and suffered anxiety for years as a result of trying to suppress my natural abundance of energy (which I medicated with alcohol to overcome the shyness).

I’ve been cataloguing all of your wonderfully succinct principles into my brain and putting anything new into practise. Thanks to you, I can channel my energy naturally again and have the confidence/ ability to do virtually anything I need or go about achieving it… in fact, if the path leads to where I envision it, confidence won’t be necessary!

P.S. Have you read “The End of Mr Y” by Scarlett Thomas by any chance? If not, I imagine you’d enjoy it, albeit fiction! (trying to return the favour for good reading material!)

Infinite thanks for your work!

Linda says:

Thank you for a piece of clearty on
My path towards enlightment.

myth says:

Thank you for this Leo. I must say this video happened at a very good time for me. I am down and out. I have meditated once in a while since 2009 and it has made my life poor. I am more lazy and demotivated than before. There is a permanent crisis in my life. I am sick of feeling exhausted, sad and powerless. I know why this is so. But I am unable to do anything about it. I feel good when I mediatate. But that feeling good makes other times even worse. I feel how others look at me more clearly and that causes anguish.
In a way, I am releived to hear your truth. Thank you. I will be listening to other videos.
A question: Why do you produce videos like “how to have amazing sex” when you know that having amazing sex is really not a big deal. Why do you not only say truth?

Leo Gura says:

Enlightenment has nothing to do with laziness. That’s a different issue that you should resolve before doing this work. Enlightenment is not a cure-all. If you got more basic issues, use more basic personal development to solve them.

Learning how to have great sex is a good thing. I just spent a whole week having amazing sex and meditating too! It’s not either/or.

myth says:

Thanks for the reply.

Nick says:

Haha, can you prove we are not dreaming?

Mahdi says:

And to Thamood, (We sent) their brother Salih. He said: ‘My nation, worship Allah; you have no god except He. It is He who made you from the earth and let you live upon it. Ask His forgiveness then repent to Him. Indeed, my Lord is near and answers (prayers)

Mahdi says:

How can you disbelieve Allah? Did He not give you life when you were dead, and He will cause you to die and then restore you to life. Then you will return to Him(Quran) …..
Please Just Read The Quran ….
It Has All of the answers for you

Eric Rudis says:


Thank you so much for this special video. I have never seen anything this good. I have been practicing Deepak Chopra’s teachings for four years but it has never seemed to stick. It has been difficult as a 19 year old in college to teach myself but I have never given up because once I tasted the rewards of the higher states of consciousness I knew there was no turning back. I was fortunate enough to try primordial sound meditation growing up because I relentlessly and curiously bothered my family into teaching me it because I knew they were hiding something amazing. My Aunt is a certified teacher for the Chopra Center so I have been exposed to truth you speak of but never really grasped all the half ass explanations people give. I am ready for more of my own evolution and I never give up teaching myself but I just need more help practicing this new truth. Thanks for sharing your profound amount of experience it was really amazing and a big coincidence for me.

Pedro Silva says:

Hello body of Leo! Ah
Simple questions . What is the point of having a life purpose if you doesn’t exist? Will you continue to want to be the best doing something after spiritual enlightenment? Will you continue to love pursue your life purpose? It’s my ego or my brain that loves the work that you do? And it will continue to exist after spiritual enlightenment?

James says:

Sorry Leo, I hope you don’t think I speak out of turn.

There’s an old saying:

Before Enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water;
After Enlightenment: Chop wood, carry water.

Whilst I often find myself getting wrapped up in observing the beauty of life since my recent awakening, there’s still work to be done. If I can’t support myself and those I become responsible for, how will I continue to enjoy life’s beauty?

As Leo has already explained, If you can sustain a living and/ or benefit the world with whatever you find most fulfilling, you should be doing that.

Being enlightened doesn’t make you a rocket scientist. If learning rocket science is what it takes to achieve your most fulfilling goal, start learning. I haven’t digested some of Leo’s more financial videos yet but you can bet I’ll be checking them out!

As a musician, I’ve become less focussed on success now, becoming more expressive and true with my art for it’s own joy and integrity instead… which may lead to better success!

Pedro S says:

Thank you James!
More two questions
First, how you became enlightenment so fast after Leo’s video? Do you know it?
Second, do you continue to appreciate beautiful women like before Enlightenment ?Or it is a ego thing?

Mahan says:

U didn’t sound crazy if there is a u

Sandeep says:

Hi Leo,

I’ve been on the spiritual path on/off for most of my life! Coming from a very orthodox family that practiced both Hinduism and Islam, and being sent to a Church of England school until age 11 where I went to mass every week, and a religious secondary school at age 16 where I studied Buddhism for two years, at age 18, I became an atheist.

I felt I had no choice, having knowledge of and experiencing all the hypocrisy first hand of all the major religions of the world. It was either I become an atheist or deny my own intellectual thinking and logic. I went with my own wisdom and lived a shallow life for a while, I thought this was everything, we are just here by chance and when we are dead it’s the end, we are gone forever.

Around age 20, I started contemplating the bigger questions of life again and our purpose here, I knew intuitively there was something more, I remembered that before I started doing critical thinking and before I was exposed to any religions, I knew there was something out there bigger than the ‘I’, I felt and accepted there was a divine presence in and around me, this was before I got caught up in the various religions and the concept of god. I concluded it was the religions that made me an atheist, and they would do the same for any thinking, reasoning, logical mind that questioned things instead of blindly accepting them… religions create atheist. And becoming an atheist was my attempt to protect my self by going to the opposite end of the spectrum. Now at age 20, I felt I had put enough distance between me and religion that I decided to re-examine my beliefs, and turned to agnostic, where I no longer denied god, but didn’t except him/her either, but left it open based on my own experience.

I’ve continued to pursue the truth, reading Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Neal Donald Walsh, and now at age 37 believe there is something for sure, some universal energy/intelligent awareness, and label myself a spiritualist. However it wasn’t until I watched your video that the penny really dropped. I was calm and excited at the same time, eager and curious, I felt a light bulb had gone off. 24 hours later I was filled with fear, as I digested what it really meant.

I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind, “I don’t really exist” what a strange concept, full of confusion and the more I thought about it, the more fearful I became of not existing, I feared for my wife for what would she do if I ceased to exist, I mean she married “me”, and Leo wants to help me get rid of “me”. What about my children ages 2 and 5, how will they be impacted if the ego they know as farther was to be replaced by someone that looked like father but was not, where as before they knew I loved them because they were mine and special, once the ego is gone, the illusion is gone, the egoless father will not identify with those children as his or special, would that be fair for the children or my wife… these were the thoughts running through my mind. Later having watched your what to do next video, I took some comfort in knowing that it would be a gradual process and if I’m lucky it would take 1-3 years in the best of cases and more likely 7-10 years. My family would not loose me overnight, and that eased the only fear I felt, I guess this is a slightly easier path for those without spouses and children with only themselves to consider.

Thanks for this and all other videos, I’ll be following them going forward, but not blindly, and each step with much thought and contemplation. It’s not easy to change the psyche, I first did it when I went from a religious person to atheist and the pain I felt was indescribable I took the core of what “I” believed I was and ripped it to shreds, if I had to draw an analogy the pain would be comparable to killing your own mother! I can only imagine the difficulty that lies ahead, because this time around I’m not ripping out a core part of “me” and replacing it, instead I am, ripping out all of it and not replacing it with anything… I think!

I found a interesting article on the ego that says we can never really get rid of the ego, but just learn to not identify with it, and then use it to shape it into what ever we need. In other words our ego is fixed right now and later it will be malleable and under our control, and we can consciously create and recreate the ego to consciously create our lives. I can’t add a URL here Leo, but if you think this maybe of value, search for Releasing Your Unlimited Creativity and then search for Ego related article.


stephanie says:

Aw, Leo, when you asked to close my eyes I knew it – I knew what you would say and it made me burst into tears. Thank you for saying it out loud.

Paula says:

goosebumps…. I hear a ring of truth in this. I want to know the truth of reality thank you Leo

Nick says:

If one does not exist in the traditional sense that they believe, and because of this lack free will, does that mean those who will become enlightened (or already are enlightened) have always been on course for enlightenment?

Leo Gura says:

There is no one on the course because the one you speak of doesn’t exist.

Enlightenment is the realization that there is no one to become enlightened, haha.

Pauli Reunamo says:

The human body becomes enlightened when the body realizes that there is no “self” to be enlightened.

Lets delete the “self.exe” from organic machine and name unit as “Mr.Paradox”
That would help.

-was i right?

Justin says:

What do you think of “The Kybalion”?

Marco says:

Leo I’ve lost my vision because of this enlightenment story and there’s nothing more devastating for me. I had just finished to complete my mission statement and I was traveling happy (like never I had been before) at the speed of the light towards the achievement of all my goals; I saw myself enormously grow in my relationship with life its challenges and failures,as I kept watching your videos mastering my emotions and the relationship with myself. You and my strong determination to finally start living in alignment with my values and ambitions had given me the six best months of my life (when I came across the self help’s world) but this, this has tremendously upset my plans for the future. I can’t recite my mission statement the morning anymore. How can I say to myself “I see myself as..” when there’s no “I” and no free will that can bring me become what I want to become?? And of course without knowing no more if it’s right to want to become that! I feel this truth greater than me, and of course because I see a kernel of truth in it. I just hope that this thing eventually will make me stronger, as long as there is a “me” though.
(Sorry for my english)

Leo Gura says:

Yeah, I hear ya. Been there myself. But that passes. Notice that if there’s no “I”, there’s also no “I” to be upset about there being no “I”!

Watch the next video:
http /www.actualized.org/articles/what-to-do-next-after-learning-about-enlightenment

There’s still plenty of room for personal development. In fact, enlightenment opens the door to the greatest personal development gains possible. So don’t fret too much. That’s just the ego resisting.

David says:

Agree whole-heartedly! I would like to add something to what you said, as I’ve felt these feeling before, and asked teachers about this. A way shown to surpass the paradox is to accept the idea of a truth being both absolute and relative.

From the absolute (enlightened) truth perspective, there is no ‘I’, and this is apparently very upsetting to the so-called ego. Personally I love the notion of the ego beginning to understand itself as an ephemeral phenomenon, battling with itself, letting itself go… An illusion being compassionate with itself as it realizes it’s lack of true (absolute) reality! wow ; )

Is there a way to experience the absolute from an ‘I’ perspective? Can there be enlightenment without an ego-less motivation?

On the other hand, from a relative (ego-limited) truth perspective, I do have an apparent existence, bills to pay, people to love, etc. How can we do these things effectively (i.e. properly make love to a woman) if we don’t accept these things and actions as real in some way, and meaningful?

I agree with Leo’s previous notion, that if you’re not totally freaked-out after considering these ideas, then you are not there yet… : )

Apparently enlightened people are very aware of this conflict… As I understand it they are in the absolute reality mode all the time, but keenly aware of other sentient beings’ inability to break out of the paradox (matrix?) of relative views. Thus they play along, living among us, able to be ‘in it but not of it’…

Thank you

Leo Gura says:

I good way I’ve hear it put is like this: before enlightenment, you are like an actor acting out Hamlet, believing you actually ARE Hamlet himself. After enlightenment, you are like an actor acting out Hamlet, knowing that Hamlet is just a fictional character in a play. Imagine how your relationship to self, life, and death might change in this case.

Marco says:

Thank you both Leo and David. Oh man, I just know that I fucking love life and other people. Really, speaking from the heart, what I’ve ever wanted with all my goals and ambitions is just being a symbol of hope for men, and I wanted to become that by demonstrating at all that’s possible achieve all your greatest dreams. Do not say that they were egoic dreams, perhaps my ego just wanted to prove that life is awesome and that all can achieve happiness with some shrewdness. For example I used to have two older sisters very ambitious and I’ve seen life destroy their dreams: I wanted to do it for them too. Haha we can say I lived in the dreamland for real, that’s my catholic childhood I guess. Anyway, I have 3 questions for you:
1. Isn’t pursue the enlightenment path (the thirst for knowledge of the Truth with the capital letter and the research of eternal happiness) more egoic than the research of the ‘normal happiness’ common at the most of men?
2. If we’re all actors acting a drama as you said, doesn’t mean this that yeah maybe the script it’s already been written by someone else but we can ever choose how to recite it? Whether recite it good or bad! Whether be good actors or bad actors! Isn’t that a sort of free will?
3. Lastly I want to ask you if you really really really believe that this is the right path in order to help people and why. Because sincerely, if life is designed in a way that only some odd and good-meditators people can achieve happiness, I can even say I care about the other people, not God or Truth or everything else.
Anyway, I know I sound poetic or full of shit, but I, or who/what the fuck am I, am gonna becoming a example of hope for men, giving them love, happiness and care in every fucking moment of my life!

Leo Gura says:

Well… if you wanna do that, best start by realizing what you really are. How can you live life effectively while being mistaken about your very existence? Imagine if you lived life thinking you were a chair! There’d be a lot of problems with that.

Marco says:

Ok Leo, I’m in. I will embrace this spiritual path
But I have to say you your spiritual enlightenment videos are not exactly the best way to get people on this journey, at least for people driven by a profound sense of purpose like me. I tell you this because you’ve literally sent me into two weeks of depression, huge confusion and powerlessness with your rugged point of view on elightenment, life, human being etc (or maybe it was just me to misinterpret). But during these weeks I documented myself on this topic and I found an enlightened man with whom I feel more fit and that motivated me again (he’s known as Sadhguru). So actually I’m here to thank you because without you I would never have started this path and, despite of the tough time, your very “rational” point of view it’s a good point of comparison in order to interpretate in the right way the truths of the enlightened people out there (I mean without turning them into stories or beliefs). And of course always bearing in mind that at the end the search of the truth compete always and only to us. So, you won: I’m on track!

Thank you again and keep up you fantastic work!

Om says:

Hi Leo,

After watching your videos, I was thinking over some points that you said. I had a question about the state of enlightenment. If I detach myself from anything that has got to do with “ME” , and if everyone actually does that and assuming everyone reaches that state, wouldn’t the world become an emotionless place? I mean, when you reach a state where there is nothing that can hurt you or you cannot anything – what is the difference in being human and being a robot then?

Why would you want to experience a state of being where you cannot actually feel anything at all? The thought itself seems scary sometimes.

I’m trying some basic exercises that you mention in the videos – keeping track of what you are thinking and daily meditation. I really want to try to work on it but just a thought – what if I did ? what after that? Why would I want to be “THAT” and not “ME”? Probably this is my Ego asking me these questions – I dunno! But what should my answer to these thoughts be?

Leo Gura says:

You misunderstood the communication. THERE IS NO YOU!

So who is afraid?

Now emotions, those will continue to exist. I didn’t say there were no emotions. I just said there wasn’t a YOU experiencing them.

Christie says:

Hi Leo,

From this video pls let me know if I can sum up properly, The Observing self is the self looking at the reactions and emotions of ones life, this observing self is neutral and is always available. This observing self is actually your soul and is there to guide and give truthful answers while meditating. As we learn more about the soul that lives within our bodies that will not die, we can realise the emotions and thoughts have been moulded through our lifetime due to the experiences we have felt ( gone through ).

Is it true that enlightenment is being one with your soul ????

Looking fwd to your response


Leo Gura says:

Consider the possibility that there is no “observing self”.

Eka says:

Hi Leo,

First of all, I’m sorry for my poor English – I’m not an English speaker. I just think that I should comment on this subject.

I’m a person who doesn’t have any EGO right now. And because of lack of ego, I don’t have any stimulation and motivation. I don’t want anything in the life. I don’t see the future. NO, I’m not depressed. I just don’t have EGO. I killed it deliberately – to see the truth.

What I understood from the video and your comments is that the main message is “If you kill your ego totally (there is no “I”), you will be happy”. Well, but you don’t clearly explain why EGO. As I know, it’s ego that makes us desire a better life, better reputation, better… and better… And how it happens? EGO makes AMBITIONS, ambitions make GOALS, goals make ACHIEVEMENT (SUCCESS), achievement makes SATISFACTION – and the result is satisfaction makes HAPPINESS!
But the problem is – what if you fail again and again to achieve your goals – the failure of success destroys your ambitions and dissatisfies your EGO – and the result is DEPRESSION! It is your ego that makes you feel bad about yourself and see negative in everything.
And that’s why there is a belief that “if you destroy your ego, you will be happy” – and if we look at the message from a different perspective, we can see that it says “Don’t want anything, don’t have any ambitions and goals, and don’t expect any satisfaction”.

Before destroying my EGO, I had a goal, actually it was my dream and the meaning of my life – to help more and more needy people to get success – stand on their own feet – in their lives (helping them with education, finding them jobs, leading them in right directions for the future). I used to do that – before… I wanted to do more… I wanted to help millions of people, I was even thinking about Somalians…

EGO is your POWER and ENERGY. Without power you cannot do anything in this wild world. Without energy you cannot leave your cave. You need just to control and lead your ego in a positive way!

P.S. Maybe, you are not sure about everything that you are talking about, but I think you are a great coach – you are very persuasive. I need some help to get my ego back. If you can help me with that issue, I would be really grateful to you.

Leo Gura says:

Doesn’t sounds like you are enlightened. Sounds like you have a firm belief that you destroyed some “ego” but in fact you are very far away from that.

Only you can tell. Look deeply and very self-honestly.

Eka says:

Exactly, “self-honestly”… What is self – isn’t it “I”? What’s honesty? Isn’t it my believes within my own box – truly expression “my” believes? Doesn’t “self” mean “ego”?

I think, there is a misunderstanding of the meaning “actualization” (self-actualization) – your website’s name. For me, self-actualization is feeding and satisfying your “I” – your thoughts about yourself, your “I” as a personality, as a human being, as a creator… All your life, you are building your “I” – “EGO, and when you reach the highest level – the level of self-actualization, you feel a need to satisfy this “I”-“EGO”.

Even if you look at Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you can see that on each level before the self-actualization, there is something external is involved – you are creating your “I”, and only on the self-actualization level there is only “I” – you are only with your “I” and you are feeding your “I”.

Leo Gura says:

What is the self?

That is the ultimate question. If you’re enlightened, the answer would be obvious to you.

Enlightenment is beyond self-actualization, so don’t get hung up on that.

Zac says:

Ok Leo but I don’t understand what you really means when you say that the “I” doesn’t exist (=You don’t exist). I know you say “literally” but I don’t manage to understand if you mean that I do not exist in the guise of what I think I am (or the body or the mind or the personality or whatever the fuck Ican be identified with) but I am something else like nothing or everything or god (so I am actually “something”) OR I literally literally am nothing that is like santa claus that can not be traced in the entire universe. Thanks

Leo Gura says:

You’re trying to conceptualize it, which cannot work. Nothingness cannot be conceptualized. Anything you imagine is definitely NOT it.

For our purposes here, in order to get you to understand this communication, think of yourself as literally not existing. Like Santa Claus. That would be accurate enough for you to actually take in the gravity what we’re saying.

Then once your mind is open to this possibility, you will want to go and actually experience this for yourself, because even now, you still have no clue what your actual existential nature is.

It’s fucked up, I know. But that’s just how reality happens to work.

Zac says:

Really thank you Leo. If I do not abuse, I would like to ask you another question that is correlated to the previous and so maybe it tries to conceptualize (sorry me for that or feel compassionate : it’s just that I don’t want to have a wrong idea about enlightenment that can prevent me from putting myself into search).
You talk about discovering your True Self or Higher Self that is your True Nature (this Nothingness) but again these names seems to me to suggest that our true nature is still self-related (in the sense that we all have an “original state of being” that is different from person to person). This would explain to me why for example the enlightened people that I am following seem to have personalities so different from each other or why all human beings have a natural talent for certain things. Is it so or am I totally wrong??
Thank you very much Leo

Leo Gura says:

The people “you” are watching are YOU! You are watching yourself so to speak.

The reason you have these questions is because you think of yourself as a separate personal entity. And we’re saying here that that is not the case! There is no you as you know yourself to be.

Eka says:

What I’m sure about is that I loved my “I” more than this “Nothing”. I’m trying to find a way to get back my “I”. And again, I’d like you to be my coach to get me back – if it is possible.

josh says:

Leo can you say me if the actor Jim Carrey is enlightened? I’ve seen some videos in you tube where he seems to spoke about his spiritual awakening and read some other stuff in internet but i’d like to be sure about that. Really Thanks Leo

jony says:

How can i know if i’m on the right track to enlightenment ?

Marco says:

So… I was in bed thinking at something like that: “Go fuck yourself Leo! If it were not for you, now I’d be traveling with my Vision at the speed of the light towards the achievement of all my goals, instead of being here filling my head with thoughts and doubts!” ” But it must be said that if it was not for Leo, I would never have started living with a Vision” “But then, why am I acting the way I act? In the sense, I’m just reacting at what someone is saying to me! I’m not deciding anything! I’m just acting in consequence to a cause, and that cause is you, the informations that you give to me!” “But wait a moment.. my mind always act based on the information that it has!The mind is induced to wish this or that by some cause and that cause is determined by another cause, and so back to infinity! So my mind is just an accumulation of informations! And these informations come from the envinronment I happened to live with since conception or at most from my genetics! So it’s my heredity and my environment that makes me wish this or that, I don’t decide anything!”. Leo if this is true, can be right saying that, hypothetically speaking, being equal genetics and environment, two individuals choose the same action?

Marco says:

If that’s the case, there is no such thing as free will

marco says:

Then, if everything is predetermined by our environment and genetics, what’s our role in life? We are not the mind beacuse it’s just an accumulation of informations depending on the circumstances we happened to live with, neither we are the mind beacuse it’s something we hereditate and it’s an accumulation as well. So we are really nothing, I’ve come to this. The only consolation for me is the extraordinariness of nature that is been able to create a machine with the autopilot.
Leo just tell me if I’ve said something valuable or if I’m just overthinking and strachting my nuts thanks

Marco says:

I can’t enter the rest of the message

Lucinda says:

Its amazing how the chatter in your mind suddenly goes silent when you really take in the true content of this video, it’s like having the peace of God fall upon you (for lack of a more ‘universal’ comparison!!)

A beautiful video that brings ones mind into a state of rest, thank you Leo!!

Ps. What colours are lemons??? Green when growing, yellow when ripe and brown when rotten…though I guess it’s really a matter of perspective

Elton says:

I’m embracing the paradoxes

Estelle says:

The truth is when the ego dies what does exist is what we call God. That is why we are all one. After the death of the ego consciousness is what remains. This consciousness is what we call God. This consciousness is a forever thing. It will never die. Our ego and body will die but the Awareness lives on forever. Is this the enlightenment you speak of???

Leo Gura says:

You could say that, but unless you’re enlightened you have no idea what God is, so it’s best to avoid that word with all its cultural connotations. What most people call God is — 99.99% of the time — a silly infantile fantasy and has nothing to do with enlightenment. In fact God is being used as an ego defense against enlightenment by virtually all religious people. If you think you already know God, then you will not seek the real God, but live with your fantasy God.

Kin Soung says:

Hello Leo…
Just a suggestion. You should really try to read Buddha’s teaching on “Vipassana meditation.” Buddha taught about it in many ways for many different people. After all everyone has different ways of understanding things isn’t it? I watched this video and I loved it so I even showed many of my friends. Seem like many people didn’t get it at all tho… Maybe you should explain with some of your experiences. So here is my brief experience. Six years ago I was taught by a Buddhist monk. He said that there is no You, or I or soul. Obviously I didn’t get a clue. But then he said we ALL are dying every day, every minute, and every second. He made me curious this time. What did he mean by dying all the time? Why am I dying? I was sitting there closing my eyes keeping my mind still and it was the hardest thing ever. At the moment he said it, I challenged myself. I won’t control my thoughts anymore but I’ll watch and catch them. I stayed at very very present moment (being in the present moment is very very important for me tho) and I watched myself. Well.. everytime a thought pops up and I was like .. Oops Gotcha and the thought disappeared as I noticed it.. So I found that thoughts came out without me trying and they disappear without me trying. So I looked for myself like … where am I? Every thought just pops up itself and disappeared itself without anyone’s control. Most of us like to think or I liked to think that these thoughts are us, the ‘soul’. Since these thoughts are dying (disappearing) all the time as they pop up, there’s no different than “I” am dying. So… Which was I? Is the thought which already disappeared was me or the thought which going to pop up next going to be me? I couldn’t control any of thoughts not to disappear. At that moment, I realized there is no I or You at all. I was shocked to realize it but at the same time I didn’t have any tension or worries anymore. I felt like it was too late to realize it. Well.. it was just realization but there are more steps for full enlightenment. The reason I share this so that people (who think it’s not possible) can notice that there are people who realized the truth and living peacefully and without regret. So please Do Not doubt it right away and search into self first. Leo’s video about how to meditate can be a good good help tho. How hard you must try is depending on mindset and understanding. I don’t know how hard I tried but I could even sleep in sitting position tho…
Good Luck..

Julie says:

I think it is possible that one of my older brothers has this enlightenment. When I was 14 years old he tried to explain to me that my world is not reality, everything in my world is a a figment of my imagination, and that I am not who/what I think I am. That my reality is not the true reality. I wish I would have been able to grasp the concept at that time.

This intro video was very difficult to listen to, I am compelled to find this Spiritual Enlightenment at whatever cost. Or I will die trying to.

Wish the new “Me” luck getting rid of the current me.
Thank you Leo

Uldis says:

Question about kundalini.

Leo, I’ve heard many statements about relationship between kundalini and enlightenment.
Some say that one is prerequisite of other, some say that one is result of other and so on.
Any thoughts ?

Leo Gura says:

I don’t practice Indian mysticism.

Anonymous says:

Your teaching people the opposite of enlightenment I’ve never heard any teachers in the 4 years I’ve been studying this to say something like this not believing your just a thought form is denying who you truly are you are energy and the essences of who you are will always exsist like Einstein and many others have food the universe can not exsist without thought entering into we are creators and ultimately can alter are universe sometimes with thought alone. You are teaching as Jesus Christ did to die to self if you truly look at it that is a terrible way to live and be I know this from being a Christian for many years its not a path anyone should experience

Anonymous says:

Excuse my auto correct

Beth says:

Thank you for this courageous video, Leo. It’s great to be on this path with you, and to have you further along to point out the pitfalls! I’m only about a month into my dedicated meditation practice and am certainly having various emotional reactions to the loss of my reality as I knew it. I’ll be looking for your videos about pitfalls on the path, but in the mean time, do you have advice about dealing with anhedonia- loss of interest in or pleasure from activities usually found enjoyable, e.g. exercise, hobbies, music, or social interactions? I’m trying to stay consistent with things I know are good for my wellbeing (or should I say, there is perception of Beth trying to… I’m a nothing!) but everything feels pretty empty. Ken Wilber talks about how spiritual growth results in MORE pain, but less suffering (youtube video Ken Wilber: Increased Consciousness, Decreased Suffering) but I find that at this point, I am experiencing more pain, and still suffering, even though intellectually I know that there is no me, and I’m beginning to actually experience it through my meditation practice.

Leo Gura says:

It’s a phase. Don’t worry about it. It will pass. The first year or two of enlightenment work is a real bitch.

Kin Soung says:

Hello Leo…

Good Luck..

Kirsty says:

Greetings Leo

I have been following your videos for a few weeks now and i am really enjoying learning so many different things. This video as you pre-warned was a rather large shock and sent me into a few days of confusion back and forth. However today I started to read one of your recommended books, The Four Agreements and it has given me a more clear view of your message.
Just over a year ago i had everything i thought i wanted. I had realised my passion and put many months work into working myself out of a boring job into my dream career. I married my soul mate and was a super happy young woman. Then 4 weeks after getting the big interview and being offered my dream job i was hit by a car and knocked off my motorbike. I died at the crash site and was thankfully brought back round, however i sustained life changing injuries that lead to many, many surgeries. I had to learn how to walk again after being in a wheelchair. Amazingly im left with only slight disabilities. The saddest part of all this for me is 1. i can no longer drive a motorbike and 2. the main thing is that iv been advised not to undertake a career where i would be on my feet all of the time with major responsibilities (due to memory loss and concentration issues). ….Everything i had worked towards, everything id struggled for i got and then it was ripped away like it was not meant for me. This as you can imagine has left me feeling a range of emotional and thoughts from Im a failure, worthless, a burden, lost, depressed & without a purpose etc. I just wanted to say that this is not a bad story as i will get through but wanted to tell you that in the few short weeks i have been listening to you, you have made a massive difference to me and are helping to open my mind in so many ways i didnt realise were possible. Thank you so much, Kirsty x

Alicia says:

Hi Leo

I just wanna know if you look up in the sky and you look around you , for example you saw a moon/stars at night do you wonder if there is a god? i am a christian and i do believe in this because we as humans have a purpose in life.

Ronald says:

Hi Leo,
Well explained, and with courage.
But you are making one tiny mistake. Because it is not what you pretend. There is no choice, it is not a nine to five job, and there is no path. There is no insight to get or reach for. It will come or it won’t. Enlightenment doesn’t exist. There is only this knowledge of enlightenment. As long as you are searching for enlightenment it will lead you the wrong way. It is like the quest for the holy grail. There is only the quest. That’s all there is, there is nothing.

Negin says:

Rumi & Hafez

YM says:

Hat down Leo, this is the best video I watch about you.
I cried a little because I had forgotten what was enlightenment.

Indeed, 2400 years ago Plato talked about his cave.
According to Plato, the world outside the cave represents the world of forms while the shadows on the wall represent objects in the physical world. The escape of the prisoner represents philosophical enlightenment and the realization that forms are the true reality. Most people are like the prisoners in the cave. They think the shadows are reality. Philosophers, though, are like the man who escapes the cave and sees the real world. They have true knowledge.

You are right, this is the same principle in all religions except they sweeten that the real truth is the void and fill it with promises or reward after life. Any judeo-christian-muslim religion have a messenger that saw the truth and came back to share it with the ones remaining in the cave. They interpreted or twisted Plato. Buddhism (more than 3000 years ago) was a philosophy but humans could not resist to change Buddha into a messenger of the gods. The human psyche cannot stand that void, the non existence and therefore, the human mind invents gods and saviours.

The perspective in zen is stopping introspect on an horizontal line (interactions with others) but focus on a vertical one, the individual, yourself. This is not a religion. “Religion is the opium of the people” is one of the most frequently paraphrased statements of German economist Karl Marx.

In many eastern philosophies, we as an energy have chose to live this current life. And I link this to your karma video, because if we decided to live our present life, indeed we have the free will to act in different ways. So maybe if we “reincarnate”, it is first because we wanted it and second maybe to try a different approach until we reach that enlightenment.

The ultimate purpose of enlightenment is to allow ourself to go on the other side consciously: the universe, the universal energy – where there is no emotions or feeling that make us suffer. We are free.

The concept that there is no purpose in life is a very difficult idea to accept and most particularly today with all the escapism available to fill that void and the success climbers to shift our minds.

Thank you so much for reminding me enlightenment, Leo.

It might not be the “truth” but we all, as superior animals, we could give this theory a though. Be open and not nihilist: mindful.

Nick says:

HI leo,
So first off I’d like to say I really appreciate  what your doing here. Spirituality, and true spirituality at that,  is what we as society really need in today’s world. I believe that a reconnection to our spiritual  selves is what will save the human civilization from killing itself, which unfortunately  will be inevitable without a change. I must say that I did have a hard time following  your thought process as I watched your video, though maybe this was just my ego, but nevertheless, it got me and my girlfriend talking and we realized that we believe we agree with you. That is assuming that the point you are getting at is that the true spiritual self lies trapped in this mind and body that acts as a vessel for the spirit to experience this physical world, but the ego of the mind holds us back from our true self that is indeed the spirit within us. I am interested to know if this is the truth you are referring to.

-deepest regards, Nick

Leo Gura says:

No, you’re not really getting the seriousness of what was said.

Watch the other enlightenment vids and perhaps you’ll start to get a better idea.

Keep your mind COMPLETELY open. It’s a safe bet to assume that everything you believe about spirituality is incorrect. Drop all your beliefs.

Enlightenment is not a matter up for debate or discussion or agreement. You will either undertake a serious empirical investigation to discover your true nature for yourself, or you will forever remain ignorant and lost.

Neil Mitchell says:

Do we really need that to see what’s right in society! A crutch to control us and tell us what to think!

People always changing others or letting themselves be changed by others! What about changing with someone!

Glad you got her nick! Now comes the fun part…..eh

All women are crazy. So are we. They loose interest if you let them tell you what to think, but they also run when you won’t let them tell you what to think! Guess if we all understood equilibrium then we’d be living in eutopia!!!

Neil Mitchell says:

Men Math and Marriage, The plague of modern masculinity, or defeating feminism by Paul Elam on youtube will begin to warn you of those pitfalls

Neil Mitchell says:

Here’s one for you Leo. Colors. Well they are actually there, but the classification of photons as a subatomic particle has identified them as having no mass. If I remember correctly, it is the lack of that elusive Higg’s boson that makes them so!

When are they going to isolate a graviton!??? We know there is gravity, but we can’t prove it scientifically….lol

The Isolation of the Higg’s boson is as close as we’ve gotten to proving matter in my understanding.

But back to colors….the electromagnetic spectrum of light all around us either passes through, is absorbed, or is reflected when it contacts matter. The color of something is based on the vibrational frequencies in the atoms and bonds of a material. These characteristics of the dye and other material in a red shirt manifest in the reflection of visible light that your eye perceives as red due to it’s wavelength.

Leo Gura says:

You have no direct experience of such. Those are just ideas you picked up in a book.

Ask yourself what colors are ACTUALLY! In truth, without any beliefs or language.

Neil says:

How neat it would be to more easily sense the entire EM spectrum! The senses of it are so various that it takes a very comprehensive understanding to interpret all the perceptions! Once upon a time, understanding these things was my passion.

But, in short, perception.

But hey, we do have instruments to measure the actuality of the waves because they are quite detectable. But, to most of us, the color red is only our interpretation of what the cones and rods or whatever pick up and send to our brain. The label red is just what we call it. But, man we have so many things going on with the senses that we are not aware of all that is going on!

That brought back memories! Thanks!

How about what we hear, feel, taste, and smell with the seeing of red!?

Neil says:

That life of go go go do do do focus focus focus was fun. It was beaten and broken out of me. I felt at the time I had no choice in the matter. It was quite forceful. Still I had little say in the matter.

Maybe you’re getting somewhere with me. Finally. It’s been a group effort for sure.

Neil says:

After years of being a rock I was finally broken. Then they wanted me back. Lol. Just the way they thought I should be!

Well I got broken this time. It wasn’t happening no matter how much praying or hoping or helping or whatever they did. BS

They still think they can will it so…..well I gave them the solution to expedite it and again and again it doesn’t happen “when” they want it to or how they want it to. Always some “I need” or “I want” attached that I cannot meet.

Well that’s life.

Arber Shabani says:

Hello Leo!

I watched a lot of your videos, and I really liked most of them, but for this concept I have a different opinion and I disagree with you. I believe that everything we do, comes from the ego. You do work because you want something back(even if you don’t agree), things such as pleasure from doing good, money or whatever it is. So in order to dissolve the ego, you don’t have to work or do anything, because those things only increase your ego, but the world won’t advance if everybody stops doing these things. The way I understand ego, is that it has two parts, the good part and the bad part of it, the good part is trying to do something for the common good, while the bad part is trying to do something that is very selfish or hateful. So we should dissolve the negative parts of ego, but not completely the ego.

Can you please answer what you think about this? Because I’d like to hear an answer about that, because we’re trying to do something that maybe even Buddha couldn’t do(dissolving the ego). And if anybody wants to completely remove their ego, they would have to kill themselves – so brain would stop working and no thoughts to come from the brain.

I would appreciate to get a reply about this disagreement.

Thank you!

Leo Gura says:

You do not exist as an individual self!

The ego cannot be dissolved any more than a unicorn can be dissolved. The ego doesn’t exist.

Arber Shabani says:

If ego doesn’t exist, then why are you doing all these videos about dissolving the ego??

Neil Mitchell says:

If Buddha didn’t do it, does that mean it can’t be done. What if someone else or some circumstance forced it, such that they/it “broke” that person. Or perhaps someone had to clear the haze of the past in order to move forward and in the process of rebuilding themselves this ego killing was a constant necessity to create themselves and be who they want to be! To be what makes them happy…. unencumbered by what others “think” they should be!

Followers vs. Leaders I guess!

Arber Shabani says:

Saying you can dissolve the ego, is like saying you can lick your back.
You might be able to do it, but life is not that long enough for the tongue to become so long to be able to lick it.

For me killing the ego seems just like a trap, because you’re trying to lose something that has no proof that it exists.
As for the followers and leaders, you can see a lot of followers and leaders with big ego, while a lot of followers and leaders with small ego, so your point is plainly wrong.

To paraphrase your rationale: “It seems like all action is inevitably for the inflation of the ego. To stop inflating the ego requires complete inaction, which is suicidal!”

This is a powerful and age-old rationalization, but it is possible to cultivate actions in your life that do not inflate the ego. Do some thankless or inconvenient tasks that serve a higher good. “Pay it forward.” Eat for sustenance instead of for indulgence of the palate. Do work that absorbs you, gets you in the “zone,” gives you the “flow” experience. Replace the thought, “I did it because I am so good.” with “It was the right thing to do.”

A single action may not dissolve the ego, but it may diminish it, or at least not inflate it.

Arber Shabani says:

Milind S Pandit, you completely understood my point. I agree with you about doing those good things, but when we start to analyze deeply these things, still our ego is causing them to happen, and that’s why I said that for me there are two parts of the ego, so the ego that causes good things is a good part, and the ego doesn’t have to be dissolved completely. That’s why I’m not agreeing with the concept of dissolving the ego, because you won’t be able to do good things, such as helping others, or many other good deeds.
I believe that we should dissolve only the negative parts of the ego.
Thank you for the reply!

This body has watched the video in full, three times. Refreshing delight and feelings of validation arose. The cause was the video’s concise presentation of key messages from religious traditions and schools of philosophy, but stripped of antiquity, superstition, and dogma. This heart was warmed by an apparent encounter a kindred thinker.

This intellect judges that additional praise would only inflate an ego. Critical suggestions would inflate this ego and also reduce the video’s conciseness.

This mind also values the truth, even if it diminishes this ego. The video helped it understand why most other egos react to the truth with denial, anger and blame, to this heart’s frustration and consternation.

Lee coxon says:

Hi Leo could you clarify something for me. There are many points that I cannot fathom yet, but one part of this that I am trying to wrap my head around is the fact we have no free will, if all that I ever think or do is already mapped out, like writing this post going to the gym, stealing candy from a baby. To me this seems crazy, were the dinosaurs always going to be wiped out, or do external factors like “reality” get to live outside of this influence? Are Homo sapiens always destined to destroy the earth. We just haven’t reached that point yet? Was Hitler not such a bad egg, he just didn’t have a choice about it? How can you pursue Enlightenment if the decision is not yours to make? Are we just puppets in a pointless pantomime? Cool vid by the way. I’ve just realized that I have used the word I quite a few times and me. Omg how does this thought refer to itself. Meltdown initiated.

Stephanie says:

Who’s thought am I?

Christopher Paulino says:

So you’ve never had an enlightenment experience? Well how can you explain it so well? I’ve heard many explanations from around the world, but this seems to be the most accurate and to the point. How Leo?

Rianna says:


How does the enlightened self still deal to live in the concept of this “fake” reality?
If all of what is, actually isn’t, how does one conversate and exist around/with non-enlightened people, and deal with them on a daily basis? How does one that realises that tax, buying houses, etc, and basically living like a zombie as one could say, actually isn’t true and instead constructed to occupy the non-enlightened, but still do it anyway? If one comes to the realisation that all of what is, isn’t, why and how does one keep on doing? (Eg: paying tax)
I understand that money makes this reality go around, but isn’t that frustrating for the enlightened one, knowing that money isn’t a true reality?!?

I take it that once enlightened, these questions will be answered, but I can’t help to wonder about that now..

I’m not sure if what’s being wrote in this message is making sense, but I would value your reply Leo!!!

P.s; if we are not a we, myself, I or me, what is ones self refered to?

Best wishes!

Yann says:

Dear Leo,

I believe that seeing the self as an illusion is dependent of the old illusion reality dualism.
Personnally, I prefer to think in terms of set up, of configuration, i.e. we are in a configuration in which differenciated selves are being experienced.
Of course the mechanics behind this set up is all formless, unrecognizable stuff that our spirit or brain decodes. But it is just the mechanics behind!
Now what you do in your video is thinking some sort of oneness outside the set up, or inside the mechanics behind, whatever. And you firmly believe that it is reality and that our set up is the illusion.
Whereas if one thinks configuration, the old useless, illusion vs reality pattern becomes useless.
As for free will, it seems that the only alternative to it is us being automatons! Do you consider yourself an automaton? Do you make love to automatons? And do you think the superior intelligence in charge of the universe is satisfied of creating automatons?


Leo Gura says:

You’re lost in stories. Notice that.

Yann says:

Thanks Leo. I have been ruminating your answer all day at work.

Kevin says:


I want to thank you for the videos about spiritual enlightenment. I have a question for you that I have been dying to ask. I have asked this question via email to Erkhart Tolle but no response as of yet. My question is this, is sleep paralysis similar to “Being” or being enlighten? I know you probably wouldn’t know fully the answer to my question because you are not yet an enlighten being yourself better yet, not aware of it but last night I woke up in a lot of fear. I couldn’t move but I was completely aware of my surroundings. Moreover, I wasn’t thinking at all but the energy of fear was heighten. Whenever I tried to tell myself in my mind to move, it wouldn’t happen. I was like paralyzed in a sense. My question still stands, now do you think in that moment if I would of accepted that fear for what it was, I would of became enlighten? Sorry for the rambling in advance.

Leo Gura says:

I don’t know much about “sleep paralysis” but I highly doubt it. Enlightenment is NOT a state.

Kevin says:

I think sleep paralysis is a state, don’t quote me on it. But you do agree that “being” is a state? If so, I believe I was in that state when I had that sleep paralysis episode. One will never know what it’s like unless you experience it. I was just there in the NOW. When I think about it it was beautiful but it was scary at the same time. I can’t explain it unless you have experienced it for yourself. I did my research about my experience but it’s so obscured with people talking about demons. Maybe you can research it a little and do a vid about it. Hey thanks in advance for the response. Keep doing what you are doing. You are highly motivated on the right track.

Leo Gura says:

Being is NOT a state. Being is whatever is the case at any moment in time.

There’s a really easy way to tell if you’re enlightened. Do you know what you are? If not, you’re not enlightened, you just experienced a state of altered consciousness.

Unfolder says:

Hi Leo,

Thank you for your awesome videos! You really tell me stuff I need to hear – it might not all be pleasant, but I feel it helps me grow.

So. Your message is that there is no ‘you’ or ‘self’.
Paradoxically, my view is that there’s ONLY self…

Might this be the same concept – the baseline being that all boundaries are illusory?


Leo Gura says:

Yes, they are actually the EXACT same thing.

What’s actually meant by no-self is that the self-image you have of being a human being, a human body, and your thoughts, is a limited identification. Those things are you. But so is the rest of reality. And if the rest of so-called reality disappeared, including your body and thoughts. You would still exist!!! Because you are not an object but the space within which everything else arises. This “space” is eternal, infinite, not-located, and self-aware.

Do NOT take any of the above as belief. It will only screw you up. You need to empirically verify it for yourself.

Unfolder says:

Thanks for your reply Leo, much appreciated. Knowing language only creates stories that won’t do reality justice, I just wanted to share that I once had an absolute peak experience, which changed my life forever. All layers and boundaries disappeared and I knew without a doubt that the essence of my existence was unity, and that there is nothing else than me. Beyond concepts of time and space, there’s only God and nothing else. And God is experiencing itself in a beautiful dreamy play in which it plays hide and seek with itself. Again only stories, I know, but it was impossible for the rational mind to comprehend, but still there was absolute knowing that this was true. The cosmic joke.
Ah what the hell, I’m only talking to myself here

Ninos says:

Let me ask you a question Leo. Is it possible that this body is just a vessel made for the soul? The soul that is, that comes from a all knowing powerful being? Is it possible? Have you removed that from your mind as a possibility? Have you ruled this out? Or could you say ” yes Ninos there is a chance that is a fact”?

If you say yes, then your theory of no self and all this not being reality and there being this making this reality a cover for another spiritually a possibility.

Leo Gura says:

What you call “soul” is the no-self. Body is not excluded from that. Body and soul are one. Everything is one.

The problem is that your beliefs about soul are keeping you from actually experiencing it. You cannot experience the soul so long as you are trapped in the stories of the mind.

Soul is only experienced in a state of not-knowing and complete openness. What you’re experiencing right now is mind.

Ninos says:

But the body is not one with the soul. They can both live with out each other. Scientist can genitically crest a human and have the organs and body grow, but they can’t make the body a thinking conscious human. That proves there is something else in this body that doesn’t follow the same rules as our realty. Only good explanation I see is this concept of a soul. Can you say it’s possible to have a soul or something like a soul?

Ninos says:

Can you Leo Gura be in a complete not knowing state, complete openess to the possibility that there is a soul that is spirit form and lives before and after the body dies? Can you be opened minded, open hearted, remove all your negative believes of religion and say ” there is a possibility that there is a soul, that after the body dies, the soul still exists, and that soul is and always will be Leo Gura”? It’s not easy, but close your eyes and try to imagine after your body dies, the thing inside of you opens its eyes. Like if this world was a dream and was not real. The soul then wakes up and is in the realty that exists where it is from. But that soul is actually you. That is part one. Then the other part of this is where does it go, how did it come to be, etc. we can tackle later. Can you do part one for me?

Michael Skvortsov says:

This is a curious concept.
The thing is that I had no emotional reactions about this. And every concept in this video I understood, on meta level, so to speak, all by myself when I also was thinking about what truth and information and self is. But that’s just theoretical understanding, another bunch of rootless stories in my brain that by the path of abstraction lead to emptiness.
The only thing I kind of find non-objective is this “field of awareness” thing. My unpractical and philosophical understanding is that there is something outside of our subjective points of view that is, let’s call it, “objective reality”, and the thing is, that we, as biological beings, are unable to experience this “objective reality” – that’s just too much information for our brains and neurons too lift. Maybe even physically too much. And therefore we are forced by nature to experience outer reality using simplification and abstraction and categorization. We are incapable of processing raw objective information. That’s why we build all these simplifications, stories, concepts and believes and so on and so forth.
So yes, I completely understand, that while my fingers indeed type these words, they are not my fingers but the fingers of this body. And all my emotions and intentions are just neurological reactions in this brain. And colors that people see are not colors but memories of the same light wavelength from the childhood when their brains first encountered it.
And yes, these are all just stories in my head, they are literally nothing compared to reality because they simple not designed to hold the truth.
I enjoy making this stories, out of a thin air, just from intuitive meta understanding of the world around me. But I guess I’m one of the billions of those who won’t achieve enlightenment. I think I understand the concept, but I guess I’m too afraid of killing my “self”, even though I know it’s just an illusion.

P.S. Well that was one pointless monologue. I don’t even know what I wanted to say.

Leo Gura says:

Yes, well… notice yourself flailing around in your own nonsense.

Do that every day for a couple of years and you might break through

Now you understand why so few folks are enlightened.

Neil Mitchell says:

This is a tough one isn’t it! Some folks may simply be happy as they are. That’s ok isn’t it. Maybe it has to be forced with some of us that just react differently to the outside stimuli.

Wow, I have been really amazed at some of the recent dialogues! The world’s a changin y’all ! It’s gettin kinda fun!

Just remember to keep coming back and readjusting yourself. Even if you don’t achieve something some else did. It’s not about what someone else did, it’s about what you do!

Brett Miller says:

As a master of conceptual rambling I can let you know that I was with you up until a few lines past the middle. Right about when you started attempting introspection. I do the same shit, and it’s not as hard to get over as you think.

You’ll have to become endowed with the ability to tell your scientific mind to hit the background for a while and talk amongst itself. the “FEAR” will dog you until you learn to focus elsewhere (rather than reacting) while the deed gets done…heh. If you have a strong mindfulness practice when this time comes, then it can and will nudge you when you need to see the real stuff.

Leo is wise when he says: You gotta really want it.
…now “I” would add: Be careful what you want, and feel free to put on the armor first.


Neil says:

I don’t know what others think they think I think. Lol.

But your use of putting science in the background may be interesting. Or at least it serves you it seems.

But I guess the armor from childhood is what dictated the path for me at that moment.

I had little fear with this work as a result I feel. However, I did think lots about the presented intricacies. And it will lead to quite an awareness, with an open mind.

Ali Rida says:

I feel I need to make my ego more advanced and conscious and then move to enlightment. I believe that the thoughts and emotions I hold are plant in me and it is not possible to just accept that’s they are not real.
I mean the ideas you are talking about might be true, and you are right my ego is trying to convince me that they are wrong, but till I can be more aware of my emotions and more conscious about things in life and about my psychology I believe my emotions and perception about life well prevail. I hold one idea though, it says that Leo had a strong point I cannot egnore.
Here is a question: imagine a world with 90% population spiritually enlightened?
And Leo now I know why you say, Hay this is Leo, and not I’m Leo.

Eric Cotter says:


If I understand what you are saying the monkey is the bodies expression of it’s own existence. An elaborate spontaneous expression of it’s existence. I would be curious on your thoughts of dreams. And in particular could you talk a bit about near death experiences. Are those simply the psyche painting a picture for us based on our stories of what we should see and or feel?




Mike Raymond says:

Thanks Leo.I will be totally open minded and investigate.

Ray says:

i have the feeling that without ego i will eventually become a bum (not caring about anything but the most basic needs).Am i wrong?

Yann says:

I would say you are right, if it weren’t the strenght of habit.

Michael Lenox says:

Since the self does not exist as you say, then there is nothing to destroy, but the illusion of self! You already do not exist, except in your own delusions! So I am nothing at all. That sounds anti-human to say that I am nothing. Many of our long held beliefs that we have believed for our whole lives have been lies. The idea of an entity, a thing outside reality that is perceiving reality that is us, is the illusion!

Ego is an idea, a thought. Self is an idea, a thought. It does not exist. Once you realize that you are not your thoughts, and you are not your emotions, and that “you” is a thought, you cease to be! “You” cease to label your existence in terms of an independent entity. “You” stop existing separate from reality! Is this even close?

We have this thought that somehow we are separate and different from the universe. We believe that we are the center of the universe because we are looking and sensing through the body, which is a finite point in space-time. We believe that reality begins with I, and propagates outward throughout the universe! From our point of view, we are the only thing we know for sure is real, because it feels real. But that is a thought too!

The person I was when I was a child, does not exist today! The person I am today will not exist when I am old and grey. My thoughts and beliefs now are not the same when I was a child, and will not be the same when I am 90! The self dies and is reborn many time in our lifetime! The thoughts and emotions shift like sand at a beach as we grow and change! But yet I still believe that my Self is unchanging and eternal! What a paradox!

I am not thoughts…I am not emotions…I am not memories. I do not exist! Yet awareness abounds.

Sonja Strongharte says:

If I am nothing and the “I” does not exist, is there a spiritual realm after we die outside my perception that exists?

I understand this may be something that cannot be put into language, but only experienced. However, I am curious of your own experience and understanding.

hear hear says:

Surely you’ve heard people’s stories of being in comas or dying on a surgical bed or perhaps on a battle field. And being revived or awoken. During many of these accounts experiences are told of. Many people claim to hear from the dead. I have “heard” them as well. Only with those I was close to during their life. From two distinctly different places! You fill in the blanks here!

We have in large part used terms such as “I” don’t exist. Well we actually do exist. We have form. We have intelligence. We live, breath, and eat. Sure we exist. However, there are principles that have existed since the beginning of what we call time that many of us have digressed into unawareness of. And at the same time, we really don’t exist because we are just a small part of the whole of civilization. Our being is composed of our experiences and the people we know best (in majority). So, as we come to life and pass to death much of this remains to be passed to children or family and friends until another of our “bloodline” presents to take on what is rightfully theirs.

Take for instance memories of someone who has passed away long ago. Surely you’ve heard someone refer to their memory remaining as imprints on all those who knew them while they walked among us in a visible form. Now think about how really bad people try to metaphorically “kill” a person before the act actually happens (naturally or not). These kinds of con artists, thieves, and liars go to great lengths to tarnish the image and “memory” of the person they want to extinguish long before that person may actually die. And when that person does actually die then no one remembers them and they are looked upon as a horrible person due to the lies and impersonations that occur as the result of these so called “despicable” people. So, not to speak of the afterlife with this, but just contemplate the means and purpose that is being met as this person is being removed from all of history as anything other than a no good dirty scoundrel and it was all because lots of people turn on them due to lies by others. Who can’t face up to what they’ve done, possibly out of fear from their accomplices, but probably just because they are a POS. It’s a way that they cause harm to people’s families and friends for generations. Really dirty stuff! I’ve met them face to face, though they hide their faces. Even if it be behind their hair! Of course, I’d hide my face as well if I had even been a part of such an act toward another person.

Then the favorite is to call them Jesus, so everyone else wants to kill them and the con-artists can continue with their dirty lives of riding coat-tails to other people’s riches and fame. While others do the dirty work! It’s a family tradition for some folks!

What I can tell you on your specific topic is that either we can cross to that dimension to help others with our own beings, or there is truly intelligence you will meet after your earthly body expires, I believe both are true. But one of them is true I am certain! I remember fragments of the “conversation” that I had once while my mind and body was traumatized so much that I was no longer “with us”. It was quite vivid and very personal. And I really can’t imagine it being one of us interacting with the afterlife! It was one of those kinds of talks! Very personal, more so than anyone on earth would have known!

ya says:

And for all the men with beards that may read this. I’m not referring to a beard as “hair”.

do not says:

Do not trust the ones that do this. They have no remorse. Never! They only lie to continue the wait. It’s a predator that injects venom and waits for the prey to die. So that the identity can be fully assumed by the “scavengers” themselves. Never let your guard down. And their tongues are laced with poison. That is their weapon! And yes, people like this can make their way into politics. And yes, this is becoming a world wide phenomena. Do you think the first two weeks of this year were a weird dream. No. It all happened. And is the beginning of the end for these types of people! As their “word” becomes known as the falsehood that it is!

Jack says:

Hi Leo,

This whole concept has left me very confused. I tried researching but to no avail, why we actually need to become spiritually enlightened. The whole concept sounds very abstract. What if it is not for me, are there any negatives? May sound like a bit of a silly question

Thank you

Arber Shabani says:

Hi Jack

I tried to get enlightened too, but I just realized some things that started to happen. I started losing everything I had, and my motivation was almost gone, my happiness was almost gone, I wasn’t very connected with people anymore, and it seemed that my life was on a downfall. However I decided to stop this, and focus on becoming positive and use ego in my advantage, so I can help myself and other people too in that way. I started regaining that lost motivation and happiness and everything started to improve, and I was getting closer to my goals. I don’t see a point in being enlightened because you deprive yourself of everything, and actually don’t get to enjoy the adventures of life. I stopped having any effect at people because I stayed passive while trying to get enlightened, but now I’m having more effect on people because I’m being involved more in activities. If you have any question about the explanation or whatever feel free to ask. I’m not trying to push people away from this page, but I’m sharing what I went through and hopefully you don’t repeat my mistakes.
Best Wishes!

Helium says:


This will allow you to discover who’s motivation you may really be following. And help you to understand the despair of breaking the dependencies to these people. Per our society and childhood we are conditioned to depend on others to do things for us. Leading to the culture of doing things for others. Not bc you want to, but bc someone else told you to. There’s a big difference.

Helium says:

I feel that one purpose of all this is to break yourself down to unwire all the programming. Then to dive into the life purpose course to find purpose(s) for yourself that you will exhibit excellence with and to allow yourself to grow around. Things that will last because they identify with your core. Which is what you find through active enlightenment.

Elton says:

My heart was sinking and I was breathing deeply the whole video. I am beginning to understand a little bit of what you are trying to communicate.

Chris ORourke says:

thank you; i feel light. you convey that this process will be horrible, but for m it is what i have been looking for. or rather, being reminded. listening to this has helped me transform a negative experience of meaninglessness into a positive one. most people hear the word nihilism and find it negative. for me it will be the peeling of an onion until i become the empty space within. you seemed to expect a lot of resistance; i just wanted to let you know that as it went along, i felt more and more affirmed in my own internal experience and beliefs that i developed but have not yet actualized from my journeys through academic philosophy and vaisnavism. rather than feel resistance, i felt increasing joy.

Leo says:

Hello Leo,
Why then dedicate you part of your life to “self-development”? And also, believe you in love ? Cause if I don’t exist, then who loves my girlfriend for instance?! I feel like I do ?!!
Thank you

Tom says:

You say that cosciousness isn’t localized but it sure seems to be; like right now i’ m in my livingoom in my house in michigan; thats what is being perceived right now. I’ m not in france or on the surface of the Moon. What am i missing?

Leo Gura says:

You’re missing that “not in France” and “on the surface of the Moon” and “I” are just mental images. They don’t really exist!

So consciousness is localized according to what? Your fantasies? Sure, that is true. According to your fantasies about reality, you are a localized consciousness sitting in Michigan which could have been sitting in France or on the Moon.

But according to ACTUAL reality, none of that is true at all. There is just a cloud of phenomena occurring this very moment which the mind has rubricized in a thousand contorted ways in order to come up with a virtual partition called “you”.

Brittany says:

Hey Leo. So I’ve just recently discovered your videos at what feels like the perfect time in my life. I come from a Christian background, and have always been skeptical of my “beliefs” that have been sewn into me since I was a child. I have always been force fed with various rules and “guidelines” that I was expected to follow, and believe is true, which I did for a good while. If I did not succumb to these ideas and beliefs, then I would risk not living eternally in “Heaven,” and would fear living eternally in “Hell.” This created so much fear and control in my life it’s insane to think about. Not until very recently I’ve been questioning the whole “purpose” of life, and what meaning it REALLY has. I relate very much to this video because I’m starting to understand when you say that your whole idea of the life you have and lived, and are living, has pretty much been a “lie.” I still consider myself a “spiritual” person, but not in the way I was raised. This is why I’ve been starting to do a lot of self development, and your videos are helping me tremendously. I just can’t seem to find a balance…and feel like I am constantly searching for meaning and purpose. I finally feel like I am starting to relate and connect with somebody with the way my mind thinks of all of these “crazy” thoughts and concepts that I feel and come up with, that society deems to be ludicrous. My one question for you is, what are your thoughts about what happens to your “soul” so to speak, when your physical body dies? I know you say that you don’t really “exist,” and I’m starting to try and understand this.. but does this mean that there is “nothing” at all after the physical body dies? The reason I am so curious about this is because I myself have experienced a pretty powerful moment in my life where I have connected to something “spiritual” we can call it. I did an Ouija board when I was a teenager, using a pizza box as the board, and a shot glass. I know this sounds like a crazy, insane, religious freak coming out here, but mind you I did not believe in these kinds of ideas WHAT SO EVER. To make it short, it eventually “worked” for me after getting conned into this from my roommate, and the feeling was something I can’t even begin to explain. Most people don’t believe me when they hear this, or at least the few people I’ve told have a hard time believing it. I don’t talk about it often because it’s honestly hard to believe this happened myself, and brings a feeling of complete uneasiness that again, I can’t really explain in words. If this experience never happened to me, I really wouldn’t question an afterlife at all. But since it did, it leaves me with major confusion. What are your thoughts on this?

Leo Gura says:

The question is misguided.

You are asking it assuming you presently exist. Which you don’t.

What you’re really asking is if the “you” will survive death.

And the answer is MUCH worse than you could imagine. Not only will you not survive death, there is no you RIGHT NOW! There never was a you. There is no one inside that skull who is going to die. That’s the point. There is only an idea of you. This idea changes over time anyways. Your idea of you dies every night you go to sleep or get lost in movie. Over the years the idea changes. And yet you still believe there’s a you inside there who is reading this sentence. Well… sorry… but there is not. Take a look. Where are you? Point to yourself. Who is actually reading this sentence? Could it actually be no one?

No matter how much you look, you never find yourself. But you can find Absolute Nothing. That’s the thing you’re truly looking for without realizing it. But it isn’t anything you know how to find. You can’t wrap your mind around it. To find it, requires that you give up yourself — the very thing you’re trying to defend.

So you’re really in quite the pickle here. What are you going to do? Whatever it is, it’s wrong. Because you assume there’s a you. But there isn’t.

Yann says:

On the one hand: enlightenment, no free will, no person in control, no soul: just a cluster of flesh and thoughts that is being lived instead of living. However a big, universal “I am” remains, according to some adepts. On the other hand: the notion of person, free will, all of religion, all of NDE testimonies. Leo Gura would say that the second is dream and illusion. But perhaps both are valid, on different levels.

mushroom brunch says:

Hey there Brittany,

I am in a similar situation in my life right now. Although I have no religion, I
live by Christian principles. I have decided not to take “sides” until I am
better educated (I am in my early twenties) so I am left in the midst of constant questioning and mild anxiety – I am eager to share experiences over the screen. My e-mail address is [email removed]

Hey there Leo,

I have a couple of questions.
1) How do you manage to deal with “regular” people after your awakening? I ask this because of the “fact” that we are innately social beings. Who intrigues you? Do your loved ones get/understand you?
2) Did you already have any beliefs in this area of “reality” before encountering this? How did you perceive reality and the aftermath prior to your endeavor?

I ask this because I am still searching and I have these sporadic moments when I envy “regular” people because ignorance is an easy way to live and “happiness” is defined more simpler. It truly is a red pill or blue pill situation for me.

Arigato and thank you for your wisdom.

Kari says:

Hi Leo,
Thanks so much for this, and every video.
One comment only, about politicians. I would have agreed with you 100% before Obama. But I have been believing he is different from the rest of the corrupt bunch. In fact, I have thought he is enlightened! Isn’t he in a different category than the rest?

Simon says:

Please tell me Leo. This concept makes perfect sense but it begs the question for me, what is it that produces the ego within our minds. Is it a product of our upbringing and society? Is there any documentation (presumably religious text) on a time when we were born into a world that didn’t cultivate this false sense of self within us, and when did this change? Why? Greedy here I know with a 3rd question, but does enlightenment effect sex drive and consequently our urge to reproduce??

Neru says:

ego is from curiosity and a ownership feeling ;comes by birth.
e.g. show a finger to just born, he holds it (curiosity),when pull back,he tightens grip(ownership of what he found) and finally when you make a move and take it back,he cries(his ego disturbed)

however as a grownup,if you can understand it, it never try to interfere in your decisions;but that needs deep learning of yourself in meditation.

Simon Davis says:

If that’s the case Neru then is there some purpose to the ego produced by our DNA in order for us to survive as an individual? Like Leo says once enlightenment is achieved the fear of death disappears. However, I would like to believe that even once enlightened the basic instincts of life still remain in tact, such as survival reproduction etc.

Personally I believe the state of enlightenment would be likened to that of an animal that possess no sense of self in a conscious way. It is the natural organic mindset we would have possessed thousands of years ago before the development of civilisation. And therefore I believe the ego must be manufactured by the way we are brought up and the society we live in.

Simon Davis says:

Would love to hear other people’s opinions on this?

Mohammad says:

I’m a physiology graduate student,I study human nervous system,so I’m kind of a scientist and ofcourse,I love science.
what Leo is talking about here,is the beautiful link between biology,physics,even our philosophy and art and all of other sciences and human knowledge.one just needs the right eye to see it.
Thank you Leo.I’m working on “myself”.it’s hard! but it is possible.and I hope to get there someday.If the universe wants.

Heather says:

Leo, This is a great video. Everything you said is true. How in the world you came up with this articulate and layered explanation is beyond me. I fairly recently discovered the consciousness you speak of without seeking it or even knowing it was a thing to seek. I was doing inner work at the time. Took me a while to figure out what was going on. I’ve been trying to explain it to my husband, and you helped me see why my explanations makes no sense to him. maybe I will have him watch your video. It’s a beautiful place of peace, expansion, allowing, and knowing. Weird and unsettling too at times. Changes everything and nothing at once. Still living life as before, but with a different truth. I am not yet able to talk about it and make sense. And even speaking from that truth can be weird. Sort of living in two worlds. Thank you for your work on this.

Brennan says:

This video was overall great i found it very interesting and it really inspired me to start aiming for enlightenment i did have some trouble with picturing myself or imagining myself in several parts because i don’t really see myself as anything so basically when i try to imagine myself i just see void I don’t know maybe its my Ego getting a hold of me from what i can tell Leo it seems like you are saying that we see reality as if kind of like a watching a VR video and we are a character we got overly attached to but back to point when you told me to imagine myself all i could imagine is void is that just my ego and i have one other question is some other entity controlling are body’s Who slash what is controling them

Anthony says:

We exist in a matrix, simulation, hologram, or virtual programmed
reality that we believe is real because our brains tell us it is.

Consciousness is all and everything in the virtual hologram of our experiences brought into awareness by the brain – an electrochemical machine forever viewing streaming codes for experience and interpretation. Consciousness originates from a source of light energy for the purpose of learning. The human biogenetic experiment is consciousness brought forth into the physical by the patterns of sacred geometry that repeat in cycles called Time.
Reality is about the evolution of consciousness in the alchemy of time. To become fully consciousness, is to remember who you are as a being of light, why you are here, and where we are going as dictated by the collective unconscious that creates the programs of realities through which your soul experiences simultaneously.

Arthur Whigham says:

I have been watching actualized.org’s videos and it caused me to wonder what “Enlightenment” is due to how often Leo brought it up and came across this video. Honestly, this concept is easy for me to accept and have already put the philosophy to practice. But I thought it would be interesting to share a comment about my personal reaction (it wasn’t fear, anger or ego of any kind as it was accepting in nature). As I listened to Leo explain what Enlightenment was, about illusory sense of self and reality, I found myself astro-projecting in response to Leo’s concept as if to say “Yes, I understand and I agree, it is not I who you are speaking to, referring to, I am elsewhere” and I just hovered over myself and watched my non-identity watch and learn from a point where my true identity existed.

Lee says:

Hello Leo, I came across your site completely by accident. Good Job. You are bridging the gap between Zen and general society. Perhaps you are a reincarnation of Alan Watts. (great compliment) I have not heard anyone giving a straight forward explanation that anyone with an open mind can understand on the Internet as you have here about reality. Those who are interested in learning more about what Leo is saying can also check out books and videos by Rupert Spira, Alan Watts, Osho, Sadhgugu and others. You are right Leo, nobody with an open mind can argue with what you are saying.

Coming back to this amazing video and transcript to re-enlighten!
Basically I need to remind myself how awesome of a thing this pursuit actually is.
Questioning reality sure gives you lots of crazy rides…
One of the biggest traps is after a few (or even a lot in my case) experiences to start to think about oneself as enlightened, not having to do much more, and then starting to play all sorts of games around it. But actually BEING in a heightened state of enlightened awareness and consciosness is another thing…
I really like the allegory of the bouncing drop from Leo’s blog with insights.

If you want to read the story of my first experience that something about reality was not what I had thought it was, you can read in one of the blog posts on my website, search for ‘Life as a game, you as the player’.
I think it is quite unique, at least I have not seen or heard anyone experiencing anything like it yet, although I am sure there are people who have.

Denise says:

I am curious why you believe enlightenment takes time?

I’m not sure if we can even talk about what is false/illusory anyway.

Leo Gura says:

Technically it doesn’t take time, of course.

But in practice, it takes years.

Denise says:

In some people it is instant.

When I was eight years old I used to sit outside under a favorite Oak tree, stare at my body and and the voice in my head kept saying “Wait, what am I?”

I never, ever got the answer.

Now I’m forty seven and still don’t have it. The only thing I know is that I don’t know a thing.

Leo Gura says:

Yes, and some people win the lottery.

But that’s not a valid life strategy.

Denise says:

I hear ya.

I suppose I am just at a place of acceptance and we are all at different stages anyway. Goals and strategies imply time. Time waits for no one. Ha! I meditate every morning for an hour and that seems to negate time but what the hell do “I” know anyway.

Thanks for responding to my comments!

Susannah says:

Hi Leo, I would just like to humbly thank you. I am so grateful to you for your videos and you have become a significant mentor for me. A great deal of what you talk about is familiar to me, to some degree or another. I have been meditating for over 30 years. I have had moments (some even slightly extended) of clarity about the nature of reality that I am able to understand within the frameworks you provide. So basically I want to thank you for your time and dedication and the phenomenal commitment it must take to think through so much material in order to bring together and so clearly articulate such complex concepts. Thank you.

lisa says:

Hi Leo

But what if you didnt see the cube to begin with? What does that mean?

Anthony Wheeler says:

The only untruth that Leo says, is that enlightenment is simultaneously everything and nothing at the same time. Nothing is nonexistence. So only EVERYTHING EXISTS. Therefore enlightenment is the experience and the awareness of BEING EVERYTHING. Which is experienced as total PEACE no motion or sound, no timespace, because you can’t go from one place to another when you are all things, places, and times. When you are all things,places, and times the experience SEEMS LIKE NOTHING. All that awareness can be aware of in this condition is the ENERGY THAT MAKES UP EVERYTHING, AND THAT IS LOVE.



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