Christian

I just watched an episode on doctor Phil and interestingly this time it was about enlightenment. For some background knowledge: There is this guy who has neglected his family, lost 200.000$ for his family and now spends most of his time pursuing enlightenment. What fascinates me is that he got scammed out of 200.000 dollars and he did not give a fuck. Literally. He did not even try to go to court or anything. He just called it "bad karma" and that trips me the fuck out. His wife thinks he is going insane and to the average observer, he is. What scares me though is the amount of incongruence in the way he lives life and what he says. He also seems very arrogant/close minded. He claims to know everything and it seems like he's just a complete dick. However, what is fascinating is that he uses many of the correct terms for enlightenment and has a certain understanding of spirituality. But it is intellectual understanding and he clearly does not embody the principles. In my opinion, I think he is psychologically unstable and a clear example of false enlightenment. Just watch the video and you will know: Questions for a discussion: When do you think people are ready for enlightenment? What are the dangers/traps along the path to enlightenment? How do you evaluate whether or not you are ready for enlightenment? He clearly did not and look what happened What is the distinction true and fake spirituality and how to avoid fake spirituality? Would love to hear your opinion on this, especially @Leo Gura . What do you think?

Becoming an autodidact - what does that mean in your case? That sounds rather abstract. You need to be more concrete here if you want to actualize your career choice of become an autodidact. To begin your question of specifying your purpose, Start studying the things you LOVE and develop a plan for how you can turn that into a career and gain lots of knowledge within that field. 10.000 hours is what it takes to build mastery in anything. Just get started. If you want to leave school you need to be VERY clear on what you want first. Clearly define what your purpose is. Then you can work toward it and make small bets. Don't leave school without a clear realistic knowing of what you want and create a stable income. Show that you can financially support yourself doing what you love. But until then, my suggestion would be to stay in school even though you may dislike it until your purpose starts to yield results. You gotta know that plan B is tangible and brings in results before quitting plan A essentially. When there is a well-thought out decision for why you should leave school, leave then and only then. Until then, balance school and work on your life purpose simultaneously

@Martin123 Haaahaha, fair point. No one expected Trump to be president where I am from too so when he became president, everyone was in shock. But back on topic: The guy just seems like he has the conceptual understanding of enlightenment, but his life does NOT reflect his understanding. If you are truly enlightened, you would have passion, be loving, care about the people around you, be authentic, do what is best for everyone, not just yourself. He does clearly lacks these characteristics, but he seems to use enlightenment as a way to dive further into delusion. Watch the full video and you will see what I mean:

@Martin123 What do you mean?

In self development there is a paradox. On the one hand, you need to accept yourself fully, but on the other hand you also need to develop yourself. It is important that you get the self-acceptance component right. Because if you change yourself from a sense of lack, that will lead to all sorts of disaster down the road because the motivation is not stable. If you are motivated to change your financial situation because you lack money and you then become rich, you will no longer have a desire to keep striving. It creates a yo-yo effect. However, if you decide to change yourself from a foundation of self acceptance, the motivation you tap into is authentic. Authentic motivation is a lot more stable than neurotic motivation in the long run.

@blacksapp This is not a problem with you not being able to attract people. It is more about how you may lack self esteem and confidence. You probably believe that it is your looks that hold you back from attracting the right people. But this whole focus on appearance is just a part of the social matrix and our culture, but it is all an illusion. You were fed this whole idea that some people are beautiful and ugly at a very young age when you had no awareness of how to differentiate what is right and wrong. So you simply believed what people around you told you and used that to place yourself somewhere on that beauty scale - toward the uglier end.And now who is paying the price? But how do you overcome this? Existential inquiry is my suggestion, could be right or wrong, but nevertheless, I think it will help.' I have some things I want you to think about to really transcend this idea of beauty and hopefully get rid of it all together. I want you to get rid of the idea of beauty like a cancer patient would extract his tumor. Heartlessly, brutally and efficiently. Try to understand this: No one is beautiful or ugly in the absolute sense. TRY TO GRASP THIS: NO ONE IS BEAUTIFUL OR UGLY IN THE ABSOLUTE SENSE. BEAUTY IS ARBITRARY. TRY TO ACTUALLY FIND THE BEAUTY. IS IT REAL OR IS IT SIMPLY YOUR MIND LABELLING PEOPLE AND THINGS WITHOUT BEING CONSCIOUS THAT IT IS ALL A GAME, A FALSE GAME? Even our justifications of why someone/something is beautiful is arbitrary. It stems from our preferences as a species and who says our preferences are right? WHAT JUSTIFYES THAT OUR HUMAN PREFERENCES ARE RIGHT/TRUE? TRY TO HONESTLY ANSWER THIS. Look at what is going on existentially and I am willing to bet that it is not your physical looks that really hold you back, but the fact that you BELIVE they do. This belief has probably messed a little with your self esteem and I think it is time you throw this whole beauty thing out the window. If it does not help you to believe that you are physically attractive, why do it is my question? If you actually do the investigation, I am willing to bet you are going to laugh your ass off at how stupid this whole notion of beauty is and possibly get rid of it.

I feel you man. I am in a similar situation myself and it sucks. In our journey, we expect things to be easy and just get better, better better, but then life hits and you are back to square one. That is the way it may seem, but it isn't the truth. All your meditation, self inquiry and other positive habits will contribute to your life on the bigger picture level over years and decades. They are not pointless. But there will be times where you fall into a negative spiral and get angry, sad, depressed. Don't blame yourself for it because there is no self to blame and you have zero control. I would claim it is part of the process and also a neseccary step for you to realize and explore new "darker" aspects of yourself. Backsliding happens as a natural consequences of spiritual purification in consciousness work. This video may clear some things up:

Be wise and take it slow. I've tried to meditate for 2 years now and I believe it is very difficult to not skip a day here and there. Don't get neurotic about meditation and think: I must meditate every day or else I am a failure. NO, that's your mind being extreme and setting you up for failure. Maybe Aim to meditate 80-95% of the time and if you skip a day here and there, that's ok. Just make sure you are not totally slacking off and have a realistic standard. If you want to, you can add time, but stay consistent. That's more important. And take babysteps like @Danielle said

I have watched Leo's video on his rant about morality. In that video, he says that you should drop your should statements. Some of my should statements are that I should meditate every day, I should be fit and have a life purpose. Now, do not get me wrong, there is nothing wrong valueing these things, but I feel almost obsessed to achieve these things because I have these should statements. So when I don't meditate, I feel guilty, and when I don't go to the gym, I beat myself up. It's making me more neurotic. So should I stop meditating then? The only way for me to motivate myself to meditate is if I force myself. Meditation is boring and sometimes painful and I feel like it feels true for me to say: I shouldn't meditate. Should I then be congruent to this statement and take a break from meditation? Want to hear what you guys think about this..

Success means good House, more than 4000 square at least, good wife who makes great sandwiches, and fast cars. If you have that, you're on top of the world. Not opinion, It's a fact.

I see self actualization as an ideal that you can strive to live up to. It's an unseizing trend toward goodness, wholeness and integration of being as Maslow would define it. There are certain characteristics of self actualized people which you can read about here in the link: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-actualization I think What we are doing in self actualization work is we are trying to break down the ego and transcend it. This is so your authentic self can shine through the facade and you can a compassionate well-developed human being with these self actualized characteristics

Let go of control and accept yourself for who you are is what others might say. I would say you should try to behave more like an adult in your daily life. That means come up with a vision on what you are like as an adult and try it out. See if it works in lign with you and what your authentic self wants. But in doing that, you need to fill in the details and be concrete here because It's your life. If your vision and adult identity is not in alignment, you can always go back, but the sad thing is to never experiment and explore in the first place. There is nothing wrong with being a child and adult at the same time; as long as you know when to be mature and when to be silly, you know? When you are at home with a friend or whatever, you are free to act basically however you want. But when you're communicating with your boss for a raise, you want to be more mature and show your adult traits.

There are different emotional energy levels. The lowest is apathy which is a state where everything just seems dry. You have very little motivation to do even simple task that you once found effortless. The level above apathy on the vibrational frequency scale is anger. It is the next stage and I believe if you want to get out of apathy, you need to get angry. Get in touch with the injustice of life and what life gave you to be angry about. Allow memories which makes you angry to resurface. Not for the purpose of staying angry for months ans years, but so you can move out of apathy into a more ressourceful state. Then from anger, you can move into coursgeousness, acceptance and maybe even contentment if you use the sedona method and release your emotions correctly. I learned this from the book called sedens method. Highly reccomend it

@Kimasxi I have a similar belief. I think for me the emotional pay off is that thinking I am not worth of other People's acceptance is it gives me an excuse to be lazy and protect myself. Because of this, people do not give me the acceptance that I secretly want, but don't believe I deserve, and that just makes me believe it even more. Every little rejection, comment, or expression that people give me feeds into the problem because it functions as evidence which further intrenches the belief "I am not worthy of People's acceptance. But the greater problem is the lack of entitlement that underlies this belief. The lack of self worth. To turn this around, you need to grow in self esteem so you feel entitled to People's acceptance in a healthy way of course -- not like a narcissist. Sorround yourself with positive people you actually like, be kind to yourself, read books on self esteem like "the six pillars of self esteem". Doing some questioning of this belief might also help. Ask why it is true? Get angry that you believe it, why are you potentially wasting years of your life because of a fucking belief system? See the ridiculousness in believing this. How stupid it is. That will maybe open you up

I think some unconscious people can self actualize, but it will take then longer. Because they will likely fall into lots of traps on the journey like getting trapped into a dogma, pickup or some cult. However, if they have enough consciousness to see that they are trapped and thereby do a course correction, they can get themselves back on track with real self actualization work. But completely ignorance and unconscious people probably will probably have a very hard time self actualizing. Being able to see your own flaws and spot unconscious tendencies is the epidemy of growth and that requires some degree of consciousness, but also real world experience can help you see what you should change. So in conclusion, consciousness to some extend is required to self actualize. But real world experience and know-how is also important. Consciousness is not everything. It's just a major piece of the puzzle.

- More awareness over my emotions - More prescence and therefore simple things like looking at a lamp becomes magical. - I can sometimes observe my egoic tendencies as though I was observant an ape in a cage. - More humbleness and less arrogance. - Less emotional need for approval, status and friends. - Increased feeling of being grounded - Increased tolerance for failure

How much action did you take to study for those maths exams? And was it consistent action or just once in a while? In the post, you say you do not love math so I am assuming: You did not take massive action to prepare and study for your maths exams. Therefore, you did not take responsibility. Fail to prepare, prepare to fail I think from my own life that I've always had a strong thirst for learning in general. Even if there is a subject I dislike, I can "trick" myself into liking it by staying open minded and focus on whatever the subject has to offer. Then, when I improve my understanding, my level of motivation skyrockets. Then It's like: Hey, this subject is not that bad afterall. What was I thinking? My advice would be to try to see the beauty of mathematics. Why is math fascinating? Why is math useful? Why are we learning about math? What do I like to study in math? Change your mindset about math is what I'm saying in a nutshell

You can't really have good times without bad times. They are two sides of the same coin. Reality is inclusive meaning it includes everything so you are not excluded from bad times on the relative personal level. Bad times come and go, but they never go away completely, see. But to end this whole dilemma, you have to go meta on this notion of good and bad. Who is saying there are good and bad times to begin with? Are good times and bad times existentially true or are they concepts of your mind? Contemplate your notion of good and bad until they vanish. Then, you will understand reality at a deeper level and that IN FACT, there are no good nor bad. Reality just IS! Understand this and you will break free.

I think your ideas for video games are kind of cool. Like getting insights from playing a video game which is sort of a simulator for real life. That is a great idea and btw I would LOVE to play that game. That sounds like a lot of fun, but also it would give you a sufficient return for the investment of time and energy put into the game. Most games give you achievements like a new camo or a prestigious status within the game for completing missions and achieving certain goals, but getting insights instead that are valuable and translate onto real life that would be kind of cool. Sort of like a new SIMS in a sense where you are in this matrix and you live with a family where they behave in all sorts of unconscious ways and you have to get outside of the matrix lol.

Meditation's core function is to grow your awareness. This means becoming aware of how reality functions at a being-level. In achieving that, I am a bit skeptical about whether meditating on a passage could work. Because when you meditate on a passage, you are essentially saying a phrase and that phrase contains words. Words are symbols with meaning, but that meaning is an illusion that simply adds to your structure of beliefs. So it does not really get you closer to awareness over reality, but more intrenched or locked in with a perspective. The best approach for that is to drop all beliefs, passages and ideas and just sit. Just sit and be aware. From that approach, you can become aware of what reality actually IS at the existential/being level. You don't get that by repeating a bunch of stories, but more by being the truth itself. So I would say you should simply keep using the technique you're using currently and expect to see some extraordinary results down the line if you stay consistent. The bigger problem that technique is discipline and consistency. How often you meditate matters more than any technique ever will.

So what you are saying is because of the third law of thermodynamics, nothingness or the void cannot exist in absolute terms. It is nonsense as you says. Because everything is in motion - no temperature can mathematically and literally hit zero. This implies constant movement for what the universe is made up of which is atoms and molecules. This sort of thinking implies that you believe nothingness to be some sort of absolute thing and that the absolute is pure stillness. And it cannot exist because well, nothing ever goes to zero. The truest thing we have is movement according to what you say. Correct me if I'm wrong. I would, however, like for you to reevaluate that assumption that nothingness or the void cannot exist. Who says nothingness cannot exist? Have you ever had an experience of true nothingness? There are insights that can be grasped that are outside of the rational paradigm. They are paradoxical in nature, but they are certainly out there. And that includes the insight that reality is NOT made up of matter, energy, molecules, atoms, but NOTHING. Literally nothing. It is unbelievable. Nothingness is what is left when you remove all of the ideas and concepts and you are left with raw reality. But to understand this, you need to do an empirical investigation. This means using your senses, including vision, taste, touch, feeling, etc to enquire into the truth of existence. No one can do that for you, but yourself. Get outside of your rational mind and you might glimpse nothingness. It's right under your nose!

Self sabotage happens because we have certain limiting beliefs regarding what we think we can achieve. It is linked to our self concept. When you achieve more and be more than your identity allows, self sabotage kicks in gear to prevent you from the emotional discomfort of reality not matching your expectations. I think being aware of this mechanism really helps, seeing how it functions in your case. Maybe certain thoughts trigger the self sabotage? Maybe it is a subtle emotional resistance? Something along those lines. Try to notice it as the self sabotage as you are doing it. High awareness and unhealthy/unproductive behaviour like self sabotage can't really co exist. But to become aware, meditate daily.

Approval (to an extend) still a massive people pleaser though. This will take many years for me to weed out. The intense anger I had from 5-15 -- I almost never get angry anymore even when people disrespect and or humiliate me. My self-judgement (to an extend). It'll never truly go away completely. Self-sabotage: I am more aware of it and I know how to not sabotage myself when building new habits. Took 2 years for me to really let go of self sabotage.

Motivation comes and goes. But great values, morals and self discipline stay with you once they're cultivated. Ground yourself in these things and you won't really need much motivation to complete your higher consciousness activities.

If you have red the book mastery by George Leonard you know that on every journey there are plateaus. In this context, this means that there will be periods -- short or long -- where you are not going to see any deepening of understanding in terms of what you are contemplating. Realistically, you are going to deepen your understanding of the questions you contemplate over time, but the deeper understanding comes in short elevated bursts. If you are not seeing results, it might just mean that you are on a plateau and that is part of the process. Or it could mean that you are using an ineffective technique which could be improved. The second option is almost part of the explanation for lack of results, but finding the right technique that matches your strengths, personality-type, preferences comes with consistent action. Remember, you are in it for the long haul, keep at it and always focus on the process, not just them juicy results