Skanzi

14th of April Today I considered... Fuck it dood. Not in the mood for this.

I agree with that one. So many times I see posts come around here on actualized.org, often certain transcendent, absolute or non-dual statements, and I then often wonder how much of what they're saying they have actually truly realized and integrated. If they all have, then there would be a surprising amount (semi-)enlightened gurus here on actualized.org. It makes me recall a term that Adyashanti uses: "being stuck in the absolute". I am noting this particular type of person now, stated above, because this is the one I am most reminded of. I like somebody who is able to change perspectives in the flick of a dime. Osho is a good example. What I like about his work is that he always seems to get to the core of the issue of what the question(er) needs at that particulate moment, and doesn't get caught up in some sort of ultimate, disassociative reality. Very versatile, very adaptable. And always very sober and straight to the point. But then again: Perhaps many of the people writing here have actually realized great transcendental realities. And maybe what they are saying does come from their core, and not merely from their minds. It's hard to judge, sometimes. In fact: It is better not to judge and simply seek out that which resonates with you. If what a person says or does doesn't resonate with you — right or wrong, true or untrue, deep or shallow— then simply don't bother about it.

8th of April 2019 I can recall a dream from last night. The dream was about me taking a psychedelic substance. I can't recall all the details, but one part of it was that of having to go through the experience of suffering. I vaguely recall the guide saying something like: "You will keep on experiencing this until you consciously step out". Something like that. And I did suffer, or experience a form of pain... The details of it are not so important. What is important is that after waking up after such a dream there is absolutely no fear, but simply an interest about it. "Hmmm that was an interesting dream". Additionally to that, I notice that in the dreaming state there is never any resistance towards the pain that I could potentially experience in those dreams. Or at the most marginally so. And so I wonder: Why do I not give any objection or resistance towards pain or suffering experienced whilst dreaming or asleep, but do I spend a good portion of my waking life fearing or avoiding it? At least in hindsight, it's always that because it seems less real, it seems less relevant. But emotions and feelings experienced whilst asleep, how are they less real than the same emotions experienced awake? What is the discriminating factor to say that a waking emotion or feeling is valid and a sleeping one is not? I'll leave this topic just with the question mark.

I do hear you talk a lot on psychedelics. I am hesitant about this topic, though. I have attented a psychedelic mushroom ceremony once last year. This was my first contact with psychedelic substances. I did not like it. In fact, it triggered a great amount of fear and despair. Reflecting back on it, it either was because I was confronted with a truth that for me was too intimidating to carry at that moment, or it was simply reflecting and emphasizing the own fears and anxieties I already had formed in my own mind. I am not sure how to be able to distinguish between something that would be revealed to you coming from a higher source, or simply the ideas in your own mind that are now presented to you in a more exaggerated, amplified way. Since then, I have been afraid to take any kind of psychedelic substance. I still feel too vulnerable, too fragile. I am centered enough now where there's just enough distance to see thought forms that take on the form of anxiety and despair as basically illusory (for whatever that means, but I see through the fact that it has no base of justification for identifying with such fears), but I still feel that I am not able to take much more than my current state of mind in it's ordinary ups and downs. I feel very fragile and vulnerable, and I must admit that I am afraid of psychedelics. I'm afraid to be overwhelmed, to be going in a tunnel of anguish and despair, and to take a long time to recover from that experience, having given me no profound insight, and making me feel only heavier and more anxious. This I feel happened to some degree on my last and only experience with psychedelic substances so far. This is why I'm very hesitant towards the topic of psychedelica. If I do decide that I want to start using it, it's very hard to tell for me what to use, when to use it, how much to use, where to use it, in what setting to use it... And where even to get it... You talk about 5-MeO-DMT a lot. Where are you even supposed to obtain such substances from? I understand there may be a possible danger in discussing such things on a forum, but I wanted to throw this question out there anyway.

Just some smartass who thinks he knows it all. No need to bother about him

I don't know the exact case for how much I've explored each of them in 2019, but in general I would say it's in this order Osho (His wisdom and clarity is unmatched. He always hits the nail right on the head) Adyashanti (God, I find listening to him so soothing) Eckhart Tolle (Has a lot of similarities to Adyashanti. Unlike Adyashanti, he is not as familiar with "the path" which is why he is below adya) Shunyamurti (He is the most articulate spiritual teacher I know of. His articulateness is at least very pronounced in the way he expresses himself) Leo gura (He is very detailed and philosophical, and goes into great complexity and explores many perspectives on the topics he covers) Noteworthy mentions are: Ozen Rajneesh (Has the same juicyness as Osho did, but due to a personal experience I have some resistance against him. Not gonna elaborate) Sadhguru RSDTyler (I actually question if perhaps I should have put him on this list. He has been such an inspiration to me primarily during 2013-2015) Teal swan Elliot Hulse (also been a great inspiration to me during the period 2013-2015, actually)

25th of March, 2019 I've been doing a lot of consideration regarding my future lately. I don't have as of currently have a clear purpose or vision for my life; It's all very vague. I do have a general idea of what my interests, talents and gifts are, and I feel that those are the traits that I will be going using for my mission in the future, but I can see many paths, and none of them I feel strike me as ones that I feel very passionate for to walk them. I do however see a vague outline of this grander purpose that is there in the distance waiting for me. But I consider... Is this grander purpose really "somewhere out there in the distance"? Because can I say that I have ever reached it? If I have reached it, then does that simply not stop the vision or the mission? There are certainly next steps that I could take right now, but I wonder why I feel so uninspired and unmotivated. I may consider my expectations. I have tried many times, but I simply haven't been able to envision something that can catch me with a great sense of inspiration and motivation for a longer period of time. Music sometimes really inspires me, and then I start thinking about how I want to become a musician, a singer, but the inspiration for music only happens to be whimsical. It comes and goes. It has no true consistency that I can hold on to. And my idea of studying social work so I can become a figure in the mental health care, also is something that, even though I could envision myself doing it, leaves me with no true consistent inspiration and motivation. I have also thought about going to live at an ashram somewhere, but neither for this I feel a consistent sense of motivation. I keep on hoping to find this one thing that will draw me in and never leave me unmotivated again. So far I haven't found it. And I doubt I really ever will. I find it however very hard to set my mind to do and to commit to something consistently, whether I feel motivated or inspired by it or it. I may be seeking my purpose too much in the emotional. That I want to feel motivated, that I want to feel inspired before I would take action. Why do I find it so difficult to really commit to something despite me not always feeling like doing or pursuing it? It is indeed very clear to me that I'm very intuitively oriented. That is to say: Very guided by feelings. Decisions I make based on how I FEEL about it, rather than what I think about it. I will however make one last strive to really attempt to get a vision for myself on what I want to be doing. I want to make a vision quest. I intend to completely isolate myself somewhere for a week, perhaps in a cabin in the woods, and to see what the next phase in my life is going to be about, and to see if I can find a vision for myself then. I am certainly not against that, but I do already see that it is time to realize that I can not always rely on feelings, but that sometimes some discipline is going to be needed. I need to develop, or perhaps to regain, that capacity of just "doing the damn thing". I don't really know if that would imply a self-imposed structure, but some discipline is going to be necessary. There's a quite a bit of fear, though. I notice that I like to keep making things unimportant so that I can stay detached from them. That is a strategy from my mind. I like to devalue any failure that comes out of not being able to commit to anything. If I do make it important, I feel that it would make me attached and that by doings so, I would really start struggling with myself and judging myself. But it is certainly true though that I am not able to commit to anything for a longer period of time. I am really too whimsical, too quick to change my mind on something. And to be fair, it's really hard not to. It's almost impossible not to, because I question everything. Because I question everything, I can always see the value in both perspectives. To not question something and blindly discipline myself in doing something on a consistent basis, seems rather impossible to me. I have tried; I have actually really tried coming out of my breakdown in 2017. I really tried to discipline myself to keep on doing something consistenly and structurally for a while, but the resistance was so enormous I could not bear it. In fact, I remember a panic attack ensuing not too long after the lowest point in my breakdown just because I didn't feel the strength to keep on going. Now I am wiser. I do very well understand that discipline, structure and consistency are going to be required to complete something like a study, or as an employer in the mental health care. I now very well that it's almost not done to not come to an appointment just because "I didn't feel like it". However, I do recognize that there is a different strength that will be able to bring me to such appointments even if I'm having a bad day and I would rather rest. I do know that there is a energy source that I can draw from that will give me the discipline to come to such appointments, without me having to actually struggle to bring up the willpower. I know that the possibility exists that you can let yourself be guided from a deeper place than your mind. If you try to persist in something using only the energy of your mind and egoic will, then good luck; You are bound to fail. If, however, you know who you are, you know what you're doing and you know where you're going, you can then draw your energy for discipline not from your mind but from a deeper source within. The important thing here is to let go of the narrative that there needs to be a struggle to act in moments where you don't feel like doing something. I've experienced this before, where I am able to draw strength to do something even if I didn't feel like doing it from a place that I feel is... potentially inexhaustable. But the important thing is: drop any narrative, drop any story, stop trying to motivate yourself, and just act. If it's truly the right thing for your life's purpose, I feel you will be able to keep on doing the thing no matter how demanding it is. Which, by the way, is not to say that you shouldn't take rest whenever this feels appropriate and whenever the space is there for it. But this is something I feel is important for me to remember. I always felt that the amount of energy you would have in order to do something was something mathemathical: That you had this much energy, and that you couldn't go beyond using that amount of energy, or at least otherwise you would have to compensate for it later. Now I consider that this may not be true. That may just be a narrative. Perhaps there is the perspective that, if engaged with authentically and rightly, and with a balanced, wise approach, there is an energy source you can draw energy from that is inexhaustible, that would not drain you, and that you perhaps you wouldn't even have to energetically repay at some later point in the future. I should explore that perspective more.

Nah dude, you're fucked. Out of all the people who have ever lived, many of them who had to overcome great obstacles, you're the only person that has ever lived and will ever live whose situation is absolutely hopeless. On a serious note: Don't be too concerned about what you read on how other people end up who have tinnitus. Most of those who end up badly because of it have no familiarity with meditation or deep inner work. Take note of the moments that you aren't being bothered by the fact that there is a ringing inside your head. Take note of the moments you forget it (or that you remember that you had forgotten it). You can only suffer from your 'illness' if you're resisting it. Otherwise, it's just a ringing in you ears. You can also be annoyed or disturbed by the fact that there is a mould on your arm, for instance. A ringing in your ears may be a little bit more intrusive, but it's the same general dynamic. Neither of them is disturbing in and of itself; It's just the way your mind labels it and energetically resists it I would say to you: See if you can catch the moment you start resenting or resisting the fact that you have a ringing in your ears. See if you can take a step back from it, and just look at the resistance itself. Most people never learn to take the step back, to take a step away of their problems in life in which they get so identified and so caught up in. So see if you can do that, to be aware of the resistance, and then let it go. If you can't seem to let it go that well, then be aware first. Then letting go will come later.

I like the question. For me, the primary opening for deep insights is just the "wanting to know the truth" for the sake of actually being interested in what's going on. I understand insights can be very relieving and it can give you a great sense of elation. I like it too. But don't chase insights, but actually try to find out what the truth is about the matter. This means that you will need to question everything you thought you knew. You will need to question everything that your mind has attached itself too. You will need to face your greatest fears, or at least be conceptually open to the fact that they could be true or become realized. True, deep instrospective work can actually be quite frightening at times. You have to, for instance, really consider the fact that a place like hell could exist. You have to be capable to say to yourself: "Yes, hell actually could exist". But don't only make it conceptual or philosophical, but actually see if you can let this acknowledgement of (the possibility of) this truth sink a little bit deeper, and then you will find fear. Then, let the fear simply go through you and don't try to conceptualize your way out of it, don't say at such a point when you get a little bit scared: "Well the chance is just super unlikely anways, so I don't really have to be afraid of it". Don't do that, whether the statement appears as true or not! You have to really dive into the fear, let it go through you, and be willing to go through fear and thereby let it get out of your system. The best insights come from the willingness to take literally everything in consideration, even if it makes you tremble. It's not always fun and relieving to do that, believe me. But it will be well worth. Furthermore, I can share with you something that really helps for me. When I am confused or uncertain about a particular matter, I often either go take a walk to clarify for myself what is actually going on inside my head, or I go write it out. A walk is best done in a calm area in nature, or otherwise a relatively restful urban area. So one of the best tools to deal with confusion (and to gain great insights also), is to take a walk and think or speak out what is going on inside your head —I actually like to talk to myself; I feel like it expresses anc clarifies thoughts much better. Clarify for yourself what the situation is, what you think you know about it, what you think you don't know about it (yet), what you think you should do about it... And also use a lots of "Maybe's" and "Perhapses". Don't claim any certainty about anything you don't really know for sure, which is really pretty much everything . If you clarified the situation for yourself, have deeply gone into the possible validity of perspective A and B, then choose what is the best approach/idea or the best course of action to take (if an action is required), based on your newly found/clarified knowledge, and based on what feels best to you at that moment. There can still be unclarity left, but if you feel a certain decisiveness is required at that moment, make your best bet at it at that moment in time. It will be a much more grounded way of deciding, because you've now gone much more deeply into the matter. What I just described is not only a strategy to deal with confusion, but also personally for me the best way to gain deeper or new insights. You can also write it out. How such a process goes, I would just say to take some inspiration from my journal entry here on actualized.org to see how such a process takes place (look for a post where I get really contemplative). You can also look up the topic I made titled "Advanced guide for dealing with (utter) confusion". That one is also quite related, I feel. Just go to my profile.

I can speculate on it. Not sure if this theory is accurate, but this is the idea I have formed about it. I've heard that from stage yellow on we get into the second tier of stages in spiral dynamics. Yellow had the same general dynamic as stage Beige had, but on a much more developed level (survival of the body versus survival of the mind through conceptualization). Then stage turquoise is as stage purple (well acquainted to the group dynamic, harmony and communion loving), and stage coral is as to stage red (rogue-like warrior/rebel) Practical examples would be an Eckhart Tolle (Turquoise) versus someone like Osho (in his thirties and forties primarily). Eckhart Tolle is someone who is very peace-loving and mild, and Osho is someone who is very provocative, very fiery, very direct and cutting like a sword through the bullshit. Both red and coral often wreak havoc wherever they go, for the better or worse. Unlike stage red, however, coral doesn't do it through violence but through their presence. You have to look for this certain fieryness, like the person is ablaze with this intensity from the beyond. Another example I would give is Ozen Rajneesh. My feeling is that Osho in his 50's primarily become more of stage Teal (the one after coral). Stage teal, as I can only make guesses at, I would guess is a very community-driven individual. The way someone like Osho would then steer and manage his ashram, his community, through invisible energetical forces which he consciously controls, I would say is someone who is at stage Teal. it would be an individual that has a certain energetical power that is very impactful yet at the same time very invisible. Teal I would say, is when the fieryness from coral has settled and now it is under conscious control. You are no longer being taken my this intense energy, but it now has become centered and integrated within you to the point where you are able to use it instead of it using you. That's my feeling about it now. But this is just pure speculation. There are certainly demarcations that could be made. In fact, as I am thinking about possible counterarguments, it already seems that not every piece of the puzzle seems to fall into place. For instance, about Osho has been said that has always been rebellious, and that wouldn't fit with the picture that we would have that we would develop through the stages as we grow older. However, looked at from the outside is always harder to judge than looked at from the inside. From my life experience spiral dynamics seems to be very accurate, even though people from the outside may not necessarily have recognized it that way about me as such. But it would only seem to make sense that if the "tier 1 and tier 2" theory is correct, then stage coral would be a rebellious, provocative warrior of truth, as it has the same sort of general dynamic of rebelliousness as stage red. Stage red is however very different because it is very egocentric and power-hungry, where coral would be driven by a higher purpose.

23rd january 2019 Recently I’ve been having some days where old fears have been started to resurface. Mainly the fear of that things would have to get worse for me; the recognition, or rather, assumption, that I would have to face some kind of death that would be really painful involving a lot of psychological suffering. I want to let go of this belief. That is to say: I want to let go of identifying myself with these thought patterns. It is not about positive thinking or thinking the opposite, it is just seeing thoughts as thoughts, and not having any mental involvement or attachment in thoughts that are aimed towards the future. To counteract this, I have found myself saying to myself over and over again: “I don’t have have to believe this, I don’t have to believe this”. This is not a denial of anything that could potentially happen, but rather a recognition of the fact that I create my own reality with my thought patterns, and that I can choose to break out of that. But know this: I wasn’t repeating that mantra to myself because it is some kind of philosophy I wanted to believe in. I didn’t feel like this mantra came from the mind, but from something deeper within. And I want to make it stay that way. I’m not interested in what it means intellectually or philosophically to say such a thing: “I don’t have to believe this”. Whatever the future may hold, is in a sense irrelevant because future exists only as a thought but not as a reality in experience. For whatever power I do have over the future, if we can speak that way, is how I create the reality in the present moment that would lead me into the future. For the rest, whatever happens in the future, happens. It could contain no more significant “(ego) deaths” or “dark night of the soul”, or it could contain a lot of them. I could get very identified with those deaths and resist them a lot, thus creating a lot of psychological tension and suffering, or I could watch them aloof being connected with a reality that is deeper then whatever kind of chaos can occur on the surface, making me stay connected with a sense of peace all the way throughout even in the midst of chaos on the surface level of my life. It can go every way. What I however absolutely refuse to keep on doing is fearing those moments already when they’re not even happening. I refuse to believe in such a story that would evoke some sort of self-fulfilling prophecy. I refuse that to be my self-created reality. I will own up and take responsibility for whatever power I do have, and all that I can’t control I will let go of it, certainly to the best of my ability. If I have a choice, and I really do feel deep down like I have a choice, I will not choose a reality for myself in which I will choose despair and anxiety. I refuse to believe the idea that “I have to suffer”. I refuse to enjoy such a identity on any possible level. Do you get the reality of which I’m pointing to? Do not try to make it intellectual. This is not a philosophy. I’n not interested in sounding philosophically correct here. I don’t want to speak from my mind only. Enough thoughts. Yesterday, alongside stopping the momentum of the “despairing” thought loop, I also thought about those things I actually really factually know. You see, for some time now I’ve been giving myself a hard time for not being able to eat with attention to the eating process. I tend to get rather, unconscious I’d say. But I notice that trying to be more aware actually just creates more tension here. Yesterday, I started to question whether I really do know what’s best here. There are some assumptions in my system, and even though I often say to myself “I don’t know”, the assumptions in reality stay more deeply embedded in my system. And I know that saying to myself that I don’t know, is in reality just another assumption. It’s the assuming that you don’t know, to know that you don’t know, but in reality I don’t even know that. So I wanted to address current assumptions that are in my system, even though having assumptions may not be in accordance to my philosophy. Because they go deeper. I must actually really, REALLY question my assumptions and really, REALLY be open to the fact that I could be wrong, however likely or natural it may seem to assume some things. I want to however stress that the intention should be aimed at uncovering the truth, not adopting a belief of not-knowing. May it somehow be that an assumption I already had turns out to be... assumable still (whatever that means), then I will go along with it. It should not be an inquiry against my assumptions, but in favor of the truth. Lets in fact also be aware of other assumptions I would make when questioning my original assumptions. So yesterday I just wrote down a number of assumptions I had more deeply embedded, or that I was living by. Let’s address the first one It is better to be always aware, conscious, or alert when you’re doing something? So I this one plays up particulary with eating for some reason. And also with sexual desires. Now I want to really, REALLY question this. I understand already that forcing it won’t make things any better, but there is still the assumption that it should be happening otherwise things aren’t going the right way. The thought is: “Right, maybe I can’t force it, but it should at least be something that is happening, otherwise I’m not going the right way.”. That is the general idea about it, that at least if I’m not “attempting to make it happen” or “doing it”, then that at the very least being mindful should be happening. It is wrong to not be mindful. That is the general assumption. Now let’s actually really, really doubt this one. First lets look at it factually. Do I enjoy things more if I’m mindful, is there a sense of more lightness or enjoyment, or simply (greater) lack of suffering? Sometimes yes. I can recall that sometimes I enjoyed food more, or intentionally focusing on something decreased the disturbing mental traffic. There were sometimes it happened, where I was seemingly randomly present to the moment, and there were sometimes when I was consciously controlling it, and I also have found myself in moments where it at least decreased a disturbing mental traffic. There is also a side, however, where, often after having been able to practice mindfulness/presence meditations succesfully, there comes a time when the suggestion to be mindful doesn’t really work for me anymore. It just creates resistance and more tension. I tend to remember and cling to the moments where it had been working for me, only to find out that it now just evokes a lot of resistance. And every time I do recall the suggestion that “I should be present”, it just creates guilt and tension, and instead of my mind becoming more still it becomes more disturbed and I start becoming confused, because something that worked before doesn’t work anymore now but somehow I can’t let it go and now I’m starting to wonder how I’m supposed to be dealing with it then, even though most of the time I don’t really take a significant proactive step to really reflect upon the situation or to change things around, or simply to fully accept my situation. In fact, often doubts oscillate between the suggestion whether to accept, whether to attempt, or whether to reflect. So doubts and resistance certainly prevent me rather often from being present to the moment, but the main question really is: Is it really even “better” to be more aware, mindful and present to the moment? Is it truly a virtue? First, lets evaluate where I got this idea from, that it would be “better” to be constantly mindful. I took it mostly from spiritual teachers, I suppose. For instance, “the power of now”, from Eckhart Tolle, leaves and impression behind on me that I should always attempt to be mindful and present to the moment, even though there are other and even opposing perspectives to that idea in the book as well. However, this is what I remember from it, and I happen to leave out all the rest. In fact I hear it everywhere: “Be mindful, be aware”. The suggestions come from many, many sources in spirituality. But now would it be better? What does it mean for something to be better than another thing anyway? I feel like It would mean that the better thing would in the end give more pleasure to either yourself and/or the totality of humanity. “humanity” alone however is only in thought and not in personal experience of pleasure or happiness. If we talk happiness on the personal level, can we then say it is “better” if some action or event would make us happier in the total picture, in the grand scheme of things? I suppose so. So let’s define anything to be “better” to be something that will make us happier in the grand scheme of things. This also means the long term, and the forever. Some positive event that would not have its drawback or negative counterpart whatsoever. I already know that being identified with doubt and resistance that comes up when wanting to be mindful certainly then won’t make it better. But purely theorethically, if I were to be able to now simply be mindful and never encounter any resistance or doubt anymore, if was totally zen all the time from now on, would it then be “better”? But now I feel like we can reiterate the question in a broader sense: Is it better (still going by that one definition of personal happiness) for us to be enlightened (free of all psychological suffering) forever starting the next second, as opposed to first having to struggle, suffer and search some more first and enlighten ourselves in 40 years? (know that “enlightened forever” is simply here for the theorethical argument). Seemingly so. In that case, it at least appears to be better in that sense to become enlightened sooner than later. But is that really true? Now it gets a bit strange. Mathemathically speaking, it is both a yes and a no (if we assume “forever”). It is yes in the absolute sense that it would be an additional 40 years of additional suffering. In relative sense, 40 years to infinity is still literally nothing. 40 years seems much, but not in relative sense. If we assume that existence is cyclic, which perhaps seems more appealing to the logical mind. Infinity after enlightenment would seem logically and mathematically odd. Since how to draw a boundary line between enlightenment and non-enlightenment if it is at least on one end infinite? However, I am assuming only “one” enlightenment here. Perhaps we go in big cycles where once every millions of years we come to a cycle in which we break free from human incarnation, but we go at some point back again to human incarnation later. Cyclic does seem more sensical to the limited understanding of my mind, but then we could assume cycles are infinite too and then once again 40 years are of no relative significance. This all is however again under the assumption of the reincarnation and enlightenment theory. It’s really just assumption. It is also assuming that we have a choice in how fast we progress and grow, instead of being lead but us having the illusion of choice. It also assumes even that our logical systems are actually properly formatting this and that from a higher perspective it wouldn’t be all complete nonsense. I think I need to go back to the original idea. Let’s get it a bit more practical. Something I wondered was this: Can I keep the intention, the wish to be more mindful without becoming identified with the resistance, would this be... Good, virtuous, helpful? I personally feel like the very desiring, needing, wishing at such a moment itself is blocking it. I feel like there’s a need, an attachment. I feel like the very needing of me to be able to be mindful, makes me tense and unable to be mindful, present and aware. There have been times when I did have the wish and intention, but those were usually times when I felt the urge to do so on a level that went deeper than the mind alone, and because of that fact I was able to make it a doing, so to speak. But if we would say that the mind is the only “do-er”, than it wouldn’t even have been a doing. That’s actually a bit of a revelation to me, because some time ago I was thinking about what it mean to actually “do” something, and I couldn’t get to the very core of it. Now I understand, or at least understand better. The mind is the do-er. You can have the wish or intention to do something or for something to be done, but if this wish comes from a deeper place, at the same time you’re not the one “doing” it. You are not forcing it. With the mind, you are forcing it. I have noticed that sometimes you can take the same action or the same approach to something, but sometimes it comes from the mind and then it creates stress, and other times it comes from deeper within and then it’s very effective. It gets a bit more clear to me now. What I simply have to understand is that if the center of action cannot be from the mind, then no action that comes from that “wanting” will have any positive effect. Other times, your actions are moved and motivated by something deeper, and then if you follow that intuition your actions will be effective. It then is not a thought, but you simply feel moved to do it. It is really an “allowing” of the intuition to guide you at that point. That’s how I recall it. Getting more practical: This means for such a situation as eating mindfully that I just have to be aware of the fact that if the motivation to be more mindful is coming from the mind, it is never going to work. It is the mind trying to transcend the mind. If it is coming from deeper within, then it will be effective. But my soliloquy (lecture) is not complete yet. I’ve been able to determine what works and what doesn’t, I’ve also argued for an intellectual nihilism on the larger, philosophical level. But lets get down to see if it really matters in a more practical sense with, for example, eating. Is it really such a bad thing to be not paying attention to your eating processes? (this is where i didn't feel like writing anymore and I never truly continued) Friday February 8th 2019 Today I have questions I seem to have lost my capacity to appreciate any form of suffering. I fail to feel a connection to a sense of trust in life and the shapes it takes. I don’t appreciate the fact that I have to suffer. I know there’s potential for learning, but first off I don’t even understand why I would have to learn in the first place, and secondly it almost feels like I am not learning anything truly valuable at all and I just keep running into the same shit. In different forms perhaps, but it doesn’t feel like I have gotten to a place where I feel like I can actually connect with life. Much has changed over the last 6 years, and certainly I’ve gotten a greater understanding of many things. I’ve tried many things, seen things from many perspectives, been able to do a lot of things I previously wasn’t able to... But it annoys me that I still struggle from time to time. It annoys me. I lack trust. If there is not an obvious connection between something I suffered (or experienced) and a certain breakthrough, I don’t trust that that suffering was of any value. If I for instance have certain questions, but the environment that I am in at that point does not allow me to reflect and really think deeply about a certain matter, it feels to me as if it “should not be” that way. For instance, I had to wait for 8 hours (whlst working) first before I could start reflecting upon what I’m reflecting now. Then what the hell were those 8 hours good for? I not only had to wait, but I was still somewhat bothered by the confusion that lingered somewhere in the back of my mind. Then my question is: If existence were to be a perfectly orchestrated manifestation (which would be an assumption), then what is the point in this seemingly useless waiting? How can I get around the idea that some things should not be? I want to really ponder upon what, for instance, those 8 hours of working and waiting could have been good for. I’ll problably evaluate it both hypothetically and experientially. What could it have been good for, whilst it seems to have been “a procrastination of the necessary, or the better”, something that “should not have been”. Lets first take it theorethically: Theorethically, those 8 hours of discomfort and waiting could have pushed me to the point where I am now, whilst without those 8 hours of discomfort I might not have felt stressed enough to really ask these questions now, or to go as deeply into it as I do now. It might theorethically have given me enough urgency to really start going into it deeply as to without it I wouldn’t have done that, or I wouldn’t have gone so deep. It can also theorethically teach me by necessity to give up on a certain need and shut off a certain need for the time being. To not question something and be able to be patient and wait for the right time. To know that sometimes I have to practice discipline and not always do what I most feel like. That can be a useful skll. I don’t like that argument so much anymore because there is somewhere the feeling still that I am not learning and I keep running into the same things over and over again, but lets get into that as well. There is the feeling, or the fear rather, that I’m not truly learning certain skillsets such as patience or courage until I’m perhaps fully enlightened. I somehow got the idea in my head that all the things I call “learning” and developing certain skillsets is just a distraction for the ego which will keep going on until I’m ready to give it all up and drop the ego entirely. From that viewpoint, it seems like a rather negative occurence. It is an attitude of: Simply suffer it until at one point you’re simply frustrated enough and then you give it all up. The viewpoint is not that it gives you something positive but that it simply may at most burn away a little bit of ego. Given that from that viewpoint you can’t really take your suffering as something valuable, that it would “give” you something, there is a bit the attitude that the suffering is an unavoidable nuisance. It seems like nothing but a nuisance, and yes it can potentially theorethically burn away a bit of ego, but even that is more an idea (at this point) then an experiential insight. But okay we are however starting with the theorethical before we get to the experiental. I want to see how this idea of a “nuisance” can be argued around. What could not being able to reflect and suffering discomforts because I’m working learn me? What could it be good for? Well, I do learn to act and persevere even when in the flames. I am learning this now: that I can keep on acting and making moves and doing things even when I’m not feeling well. It’s developing that discipline muscle. Is it developing though? What if I already have the capacity, and it is something that I can’t train further? If you are already able to do it, then in that sense would you even be able to learn discipline from it? If you are able to do this from the first day, and then are also able to do it 6 months later, to keep on acting when in discomfort, when “wanting to do something else (like reflecting)”, have you then learned something more 6 months later as opposed to the first day? Well you can’t stay the same way for 6 months straight and keep on resisting your discomfort all the way through, is my feeling. But let’s say you actually did. Then what would you have gained from that? Longer term persistance, is the first thing that comes to mind. The ability to keep at something, to not give up on something so easily. It would be demotivating to keep on doing something the same way with the same feelings and thoughts for 6 months straight. So if you do indeed keep at it, you will certainly learn that skillset. Is longer-term persistance useful, however? Is it virtuous? Well, the question is: Can you do without would you want to completely let go? In fact, would liberation even be possible without beforehand having exerted much effort towards it? Will you be able to let go of your suffering if you haven’t even been trying so much beforehand? Or do you first have to really, really try in order to totally let go? My experience so far would be that it is the latter, because in my experience I very often can correlate letting go of something to first having tried and struggled. It’s what Adyashanti refers to as: “burning away/letting go of the personal will” And going back to my example: It certainly seems more likely that you would be able to let go or take a next necessary step on your journey if you have felt the same frustration for 6 months as opposed to the first day. WIth the first day, there is not so much pressure and urgency for it. After 6 months, it certainly seems much more likely that now you want to seek another way or path, or you want to reflect upon what you can really do. After 6 months, there certainly seems to be a lot more urgency and need for it. Can I say that was necessarily the same thing with today. Would I have not have done the reflection as deeply as I’m doing now weren’t it for those 8 hours? I really can not confirm. Perhaps I would have. Then what would those 8 hours have been good for? I still feel like the frustration from those 8 hours pushes me a little bit harder to go somewhere, to seek new horizons, then if I hadn’t experienced those 8 hours. Perhaps I would have gone as deep in my reflection in both cases (but to be honest, would I have thought about this specific example?), but I still feel like that frustration of those 8 hours will lead to something more. Perhaps that even if I would have gone as deep in my reflection, then perhaps it will want me to find a new avenue more quickly the next time I feel suffering. We could perhaps say: If I had not experienced these 8 hours today, then perhaps another day I would have needed those 8 hours to come to a point of change, whereas with my current situation I wouldn’t have needed those 8 hours on another day. Or more simply put: that a procrastination (so to speak) of today will lead me to take action more quickly on another day, as opposed to the situation where today I would’ve not waited those 8 hours. That could all be true, but what if it weren’t though? Then what could be the positive reframe here? Then perhaps it simply gives you more depth in the total picture. More ego resistance burnt away March 9th 2019 Today I pondered upon the matter of egocentrism. I tend to be quite an egocentric person, which is something I wanted to reflect upon. I first found it important not to judge it, not to wish it awat, but to have the intention to truly understand why I’m so much concerned about me, leaving very little space to be there for other people. After reflecting upon it a little bit, I came to the realization that within me I have the belief that I first have to take care of myself before I would be able to take care of others. This was a core belief I held without me really having questioned this assumption very much. The basic idea I have is that I first have to become centered, happy and peaceful myself before I would be able to mean something for others. My idea was that of a bucket overflowing: first you have to fill yourself up with water, and eventually anything you’re so full that you automatically start overflowing and sharing with others. That is, or was, the basic idea I had about what it meant to mean something for others. The idea I had that anything that had to do with caring for others would be mostly or almost completely irrelevant until I would be very centered and peaceful and then it would happen automatically. I had tried a couple of times to DO something for other people, but I never felt like it gave me any true fulfillment, so I stopped bothering about trying to help or serve other people. However, today I questioned that assumption. The assumption that you first have to be full yourself before you would start sharing with others. I wondered if taking care of others wasn’t in reality a way of taking care of yourself as well. An important note to make about that: there is a big difference about what you DO for others, and that want to BE there for others. I refer not to an action but an attitude. There can be an action coming out of the attitude, but that is not the main thing. This I also lately realized could make an important difference, the difference between doing and being. I will now use the word “Serving” as a substitute for “being there for others”. So to continue on: I was considering the possibility that serving others may serve myself as well. Yes, it’s in the end still for a good part about myself, about what I do for others would help me, but the fact that I can give myself permission to open up to a perspective I have never truly considered that much before, may already make quite a big difference. I realized that perhaps, simply giving myself permission that it is okay to serve others and why it would be okay, may potentially already evoke feelings of compassion within me. Just by giving myself permission that it is okay to feel compassion and to serve others. Just being aware that it may help myself too, may already open myself up to it. So why would serving others help me too then? Why would sharing and giving help me? Yes, I know I am still talking about serving others for my personal sense of gain, but I just can’t to seem to go about it any other way. So why would serving help me? Because my personal feeling is that it expands this contracted “me-feeling”. I feel like it would broaden my horizon; it would allow you to forget yourself and all this self-interest and egocentric desires that seem to keep me so close to myself. When I say that it “keeps me close to myself”, I mean that I can’t see past my own perspective, past my own mind. The feeling that whatever goes on in my mind and my story is more important and vital in my life than everything around me. That is kind of the sense I have most of the time. Like whatever goes on inside my head has more reality, more realness, just even as a kind of feeling or sense, than the reality that goes on outside my mind and body. And living that way, it feels rather contracted and small. If through connecting to others and serving others I can forget about this “me-sense”, I feel it would get me in that way out of my head, and I would be able to experience, in a way, a more broader, more encompassing ego. “Ego” isn’t always necessarily a no-no word. So in other words: A sense of who I am that is bigger than just the “I”. That the “me” then has expanded beyond my own mind and body. I am talking partially from experience here, and also partially from my mind, but I do feel like it has a valuable core of truth to it. So to serve others, to connect with others and to be there for others, might be able to make me feel bigger in that sense, more whole, more connected. To not serve others and to only care for and to only be concerned about myself, may correlate more to survival and may make me feel more contracted and smaller. I don’t feel like there is anything in particular that I can DO that would me more compassionate. However, If I am simply aware of that being more compassionate and connected to others is going to help me as well, then thereby it may open myself up to invoke and bring out compassion within me that I potentially already had. Perhaps permission to be compassionate and to serve or be there for others is all that I really need, perhaps it’s not so much, or maybe not at all, about what I can DO for others. So in the end, there’s maybe just one thing to remember which would be all that I need. The best way to word it I would say is this: If I can be there for others, it heals all involved (and so including myself). Looking at someone else's journal, I got inspired that I can not only write about what has been going on, but I can also potentially share video's or links that have been of interest to me. I may not do that in this post, but I do think I will do this in the future. 16th march 2019 Today I'm fighting a battle within myself that I had not anticipated on that it could take this severity. In fact, I am still fighting this battle to some degree as I am writing this text. I have a strong conflict within myself in which my sense of responsibility and my desire to follow my feelings, are strongly opposed to each other right now. The situation is as follows: I am employed by a museum, in which I am responsible for feeding and taking care of the animals. I can really do this at any given time on the day that I am scheduled on, giving me a lot of freedom to choose the moment I want to go. I do thnk they officially want me to be there in the morning, but the park is nearabout empty during the day and nobody really bats an eye if I go there later. But now, for whatever reason I started to resent going there. However, my employers seem to be rather tolerant people and I feel like I am given a lot of freedom. I don't know exactly why I am resenting it. What I do know is that there is a part in me that strongly voices that I can take it easy, go at any time I want, and it also says that even if I weren't to feed the animals, this would be okay too. Just take it easy, don't put pressure on yourself, and whatever happens is okay. That's one part of me. Another part of me feels really guilty about the first part, because I know many employers that don't give you this kind of freedom, that put way more pressure on you, and because they put more pressure on me and keep a closer eye on me, I do tend to do a better job at that kind of work. Not that I like it that way, but in a way it does seem more effective, at least on the shorter term. So because my employers at the museum seem rather kind and tolerant, I feel even more responsible to do a good job and do what I am told to do. I don't want to be lazy, to slack, to be irresponsible, but at the same time I really don't like putting this pressure on myself that I have act. For instance, when I delay my departure to the museum on the day that I'm supposed to work, one part of me says: "It's okay to take it easy. As long as feeding the animals gets done today. You don't want to be so harsh on yourself, so why not just take it easy and go whenever you feel like going? You can do stuff you like to do first before you go, if you prefer that". But another part of me feels responsible, and feels that I am simply unneccesarily procrastinating. It feels guilty about any minute that I am delaying me going to the museum. Whereas jobs where you have to be at a specific spot at a specific time, I am much more able to handle that, because there's not this grey area whether you're supposed to go or not. I do not always like going to these places that I have to be at at a particular point in time, and often I do prefer to do something else that day, but at least the fact that you are expected at a particular time makes it very clear about what you need to do. And this very conflict about "should I go or should I not go? Should I even try it all this day or should I not?" Makes me drain of my energy and motivation to go there in the first place, additionally to the fact that one part of me is saying that "I shouldn't leave out of guilt". And in this way I found myself both yesterday and today (both days that I need to work), bedridden with inner conflict and guilt. I had the excuse that I was "processing it", and that (one part of me said that) I didn't really feel able to go there anyway whilst I was processing, but maybe it isn't even processing but just incapacitation. It just leaves me in a situation where I am torn between two parts of myself. One that feels very responsible, which says: "Just don't be lazy, don't make this thing such a big deal and just do the damn thing, you crybaby", and another one that doesn't want to be pressured, or feel forced to, to do anything at all. That doesn't want to act blindly and create unneccessary tension within myself by forcing it. That is my inner conflict right now. And in fact, I am writing this entry in my journal "as I am supposed to go", as I am still supposed to work there today. It makes the question also: should I first inquire more deeply about what is going on here, or should i just go to get it over with and get the pressure of my chest, so after I have done it I do at least have the breathing space to more properly reflect. I notice that even though I haven't gone yet, and even though there's still a bit of guilt right now, I am able to reflect well enough upon what's going on. So I feel I better continue anyways. Let's just make this agreement with myself: Don't go there until you are decisive and less conflicted about what you want to do, how you want to do it, and what your attitude about it is going to be. I know that if I go there now and this confusion has remained unresolved, it will keep eating on me and probably ultimately leave me uncapacitated to do my job there. Let's forget everything right now and just type. So, Let's continue. Yesterday I was also supposed to work there and feed the animals, and ultimately I did about 30% of what I was supposed to do there. I had the same confusions as I have today. I did however feel like yesterday there was more energetic processing that had a greater priority, as opposed to today. Yesterday I took a reflective walk and decided to go the route of detachment for that day, just saying to myself: "It's okay. Life appears to be taking you this way. There's no need to feel guilty. Just take it easy". Repeating things of those nature to myself as a mantra. For yesterday, it seemed to more or less work for the time being. However, today, as I'm supposed to work again, the same method doesn't seem to have the same effect anymore. Again the same conflict, again the same incapacitation through the confusion and inner struggle that makes me unable to go there and do my job in the first place. This time, the attitude that I brought to the table yesterday doesn't seem to work anymore for me. The inner turmoil once again became pretty big, much bigger than I had anticipated on once again. A difference with yesterday, however, is that today there's not so much energetical resistance anymore, as I feel like I have processed much of that yesterday, but mainly a lot of confusion and inner conflict. So here I am writing and reflecting, upon how I want to deal and regard with this situation. Let's make very one thing clear from the start: In a very confused state of mind, I am incapacitated to be working in the first place. In particular if the confusion is about whether I should be working in the first place or not. Now that that is clear, we can move on. I know trying to detach myself from my work, saying "oh it's not truly that important, taking in the absolute view of the universe. everything has it's place and nothing is good or bad."; that attitude doesn't work anymore right now; whether it's true or not, or both true and untrue. It's not a paradigm that's effective right now. The guilt remains. Trying to just go there and force my way through it also doesn't work right now, or at least so I reckon, because I am unable to align myself towards doing such. There's too much resistance, or too much confusion, and maybe for the right reasons. I really doubt I would be able to align at this point as I'm writing. So what's left? Reflection and introspection is left, at least at this particular moment. In fact, I feel like the confusion, the struggle, is starting to lift... It's strange. Now that the situation is suddenly very clear to me —that neither the "everything is okay" or "just do it" paradigm really work for me right now— it leaves me with a gap. What happened? All I did was just make it clear to myself that no single strategy right now would be effective. Simply by realizing that any strategy from the mind here is a losing game, I relax.

I'll give you another perspective. One that's in a way categorically different than what I see most comments be about here. But you do have to pay close attention, because it's easily misunderstood. This is a dangerous one I'm posting here if not properly understood, and I'm taking a great gamble by posting this. this is why I strongly urge you to read through the entire article before making up your mind about what my post is about. People try to frame the situation in a positive light, or they try to encourage you to live. My feeling is that this is in many cases this is simply out of fear of death. You can look at this situation from a different angle. Your title states you don't want to live anymore. Most people here want to prevent you in some way or another from having a self-destructive or suicidal attitude. I'm not that kind of person. Why would you even begin to post that you don't want to live anymore? Why even state it? If you don't want to live anymore, then simply commit suicide. Why would you start a topic about it? This is not because I want you to commit suicide, but I'm just arguing from your perspective. It's clear to me that you post this so you can see if there are any reasons you can find to keep on living. You want to find encouragement. At least be honest about that. Don't create such a post about it where you constantly give a counterargument or negative reply to anything any other person suggests here. If you are really so certain that you don't want to live anymore, then why are you still alive? You would already have taken your own life by now Start by being honest with yourself and others. Instead of pretending to be this person that doesn't want to live anymore, admit that you do want to keep on living and to have reasons for it —or certainly at least a part of you does. Reframe the topic and reframe the intention of it. Instead of taking on this life-negative approach, be honest with yourself and frame it like this: "Part of me feels like I don't want to live anymore, but another part of me definitely does want to keep on living. Can you guys help me to find reasons or reframes that would give me encouragement to keep on living?". Start with this honesty, at least. But even if you have all the reasons that have ever and will ever exist to keep on living, this wouldn't be enough. It would never be enough, because it would merely a fight against the part of you that doesn't want to keep living. It doesn't matter if you believe in reincarnation and therefore suicide would be useless, or that you would be condemned to hell if you would commit suicide, or that life has potential to be full of joy... It doesn't matter what you believe here. If those reframes and "positive thoughts" are simply repression against your desire for annihilation, the shadow of it will always keep on following you, no matter what you do or believe in. If you are really sincere about your inquiry for truth, admit that no thought has a preference over the other. This means even that the survival drive has no preference over the suicidal urge. None at all. Suicide is just as relevant as life is. To choose suicide is just as a feasible, relevant idea as the idea to keep on living is. Consider it. Ponder upon it. Inquire about it with absolute sincerity. See how everything that is considered "Negative" or "bad" can be argued in such a way that it can become something constructive or positive. Just try it, even if it doesn't feel real to you and if it only appears only theorethical. Start with "theorethically", if nothing else. Here is the interesting part about it: If you have absolutely no resentment anymore against the idea of committing suicide, it will lose its appeal. To be wanting to commit suicide, means that you want to escape life, that you want to escape suffering. If you are absolutely okay with death, you will be absolutely okay with life also. Because you are allowing yourself to step out of it at any moment, there is absolutely no problem, absolutely no struggle. Then anything that accompanies life, will simply be a fun game to you, like the way a child plays a game. Even physical discomfort and pain will be of no worry to you. Because for all you know, you could be gone tomorrow. you have become okay with it, at least. Then why bother about discomfort? Life becomes so light, so worryless. Now, life will simply be an amazing game, an amazing play in which everything appears as a sort of holy perfection. What I've described above is the realization I had about half a year ago on the topic of suicide. I struggled with the same kind of resentment I had towards the idea of suicide (which I feel like it's appropriate to assume OP must be having otherwise this topic wouldn't be here). Even though I wasn't actively depressed or suicidal, I still felt a certain fear and dread about the idea that one day it could happen that I would take my life, until I suddenly realized that it ultimately matters if I do or don't commit suicide. At that point, I suddenly felt very peaceful and life became suddenly so wonderful. It felt like such a big burden had been lifted off my shoulders. I took notes at that point to describe my realization. I still have it on my phone. I'll type it out: "Relaxed. My problems appear no longer as something serious. Primarily, there's simply worrylessness and playfulness towardws everything. Everything appears as a silly, funny game. Suffering is nothing more than a consequence of misunderstandings. Without misunderstandings, here are no worries. Without worries any form of physical and emotional pain is simply a light-hearted game to you, just like a child plays a game. Suffering is only there if you don't see the situation for what it truly is" (end quote) I'll leave it with this.

I don't understand what enlightenment is. How can I search for something if I don't know what it is that I am searching for? I have had peak experiences, or deep insights accompanied with a sense of relief through my insight, but I don't feel like I've come to know what enlightenment or an "enlightenment experience" is. I can label any experiences or insights I have as such, but how do I know that I am simply not befooling myself? Is enlightenment an experience or an attitude? Is it a feeling of whatever kind —peace, joy, bliss— or more an attitude TOWARDS what you are experiencing. In fact, how do draw the boundary line between a feeling and attitude? We can speak of a "peaceful attitude", but that translates in the end in an experience of peace of the feeling of peace. Peak experiences, and thus feelings, I can only intellectually understand as something tied to duality, so it can not be the real thing, I would assume. But this is merely an assumption so this could be wrong. If an attitude would translate into a feeling, as I can define no clear boundary lines, then what else could I be searching for in enlightenment but to feel good? I thought for some time that I was searching for an attitude, but I feel like that makes no sense now. I can not understand my search for enlightenment to be anything other than to feel good, in some way or another. Is this what I'm supposed to search for, and is this what I'm supposed to find? If it were to be some sort of feeling, is that which I would find as a feeling something that is beyond dualities? Something that does not return to its opposite? Then how would I have known if I have found it? And if it were not to be some sort of feeling, then what is it truly worth? Is enlightenment something that I can conceptualize even as the vaguest pointer in the almost complete dark? Or is it simply a mystery until it hits you? Are all my attempts to understand or conceptualize it with my mind to complete, utter lack of avail? In fact, does enlightenment even exist? Am I made to believe in a lie? Why should I even believe that it exists? Just because spiritual teachers tell me so? Just because spiritual seekers agree that it exists? I have no true evidence, so why should I believe? And even more fundamental than that: WHAT am I supposed to believe, or disbelief, or neither believe or disbelief? The only thing I can imagine myself doing is to search something for which would make me feel good. I will try. Not necessarily by conscious choice but I know I will anyway. Because if it were not a feeling I was looking for, then what the hell am I supposed to be searching for? Or what am I supposed to find? What will anything other than a good feeling be worth?

I will join him on this one Mind can say anything. Mind can believe anything (using a different definition than the person I'm quoting). This is all irrelevant What the mind believes or says isn't relevant. What is relevant is that you KNOW it. Knowing, in the sense that I'm using it, has nothing to do with the mind. Knowing means internalizing a truth. It then goes deeper then your mind. Until that knowing happens, anything the mind says or believes is just a silly game you play to befool and distract yourself. Mind has nothing to do with whether you believe it to be a fiction or not. Mind can not believe itself to be real, but this is just a comical trick of itself because it's still the mind judging the mind as unreal. The same game.

What do you mean with being a "shitty" person? Because you are not fair, or a liar, or cowardice, or whatever...? Why do you think you're a shitty person? You've already taken it for granted. What you're trying to accept now is your own idea of that you are a shitty person. You can accept the fact that you tend to judge yourself as a shitty person, but first look behind the label that you have imposed upon yourself. Personally, I haven't met a shitty person; only people who are confused. Whether they do "bad" things or believe themselves to be "bad" or "unworthy" does not matter. I don't define "shittyness" by a person's actions. All I see is simply confused people, not "bad" or "shitty" people. I have never truly understood how people can regard themselves with so little self-worth. I simply don't believe the worthless person exists. I refuse to. You are all full of magnificence in my eyes. I can not look at a person and not feel a sense great awe for just the... the boundless perfection and enormity of this person's essence. I can only feel a great reverence, for whomsoever it is. I don't feel any distinction in our value. At least not as I'm typing right now.

Do you imply with "self-doubt" a sense of inferiority, or an actual uncertainty in which you doubt what you should be doing?

I actually experience those jerk movements all the time, believe it or not. Right now, literally every day for sometimes multiple hours on a day. To me, it feels like energetical release. At first I had it merely with a violent contraction of the neck every 10 seconds (head jerk), which started in early 2018, now since a few months I also experience it as physical shaking throughout my whole body. Sometimes this looks more like a sort of shivering motion, and sometimes it's more a violent shock-like contraction of the abdominal muscles. Additionally to that, I often (feel called to) do a certain exercise —if we can call it that way, because it's more a happening rather than a doing— in which I place my hands on many different places on my skull like I would imagine they would do in craniosacral therapy (I don't know much about it tbf, but my initial impression of it), and I feel like this helps to release energy or make energy flow better. I also tend to puff a lot, to blow the energy out, and sometimes I have fits of deep and very frequent yawning which I also feels helps energetically to release tension. And actually, it usually doesn't disturb me so much as you would imagine by reading what it looks like; Not the actual jerking and twitching itself, aside from some headache if I'm in a phase where those head/neck-jerks occur a lot. What disturbs me more, is the fact that when I feel that I need to do this kind of energy work, sometimes it's very hard to ignore the call. This can be whilst I'm at work, or out in the city, or anywhere where I can't simply easily retreat somewhere in privacy and do this energy work on myself. If I feel like I need to do energy work, it can feel very disturbing not to be able to do at that particular moment at times. Sometimes it's more disturbing than other times. It's also difficult that it's very difficult to explain to people what is actually going on. What are you supposed to say? Do you say: "I'm going to the toilet now to allow some violent jerking motions to happen in regard to my head/body, which I feel like has to do with kundalini energy releasing energetical/mental blocks in my system. It helps me to become less tense and I find it very difficult to focus on what I'm doing if I can't be allowed to do this right now". Are you going to say that every time? I feel like saying such a thing would create more difficulty than it solves. So looked at me from the outside, people must be thinking I have a very small bladder, as I'm going to the toilet in almost every occassion I am to do this energy work upon myself. I do have control over whether I will allow it or not to happen, but it's disturbing not to allow it to happen when it calls me. So in my best words to describe what this very frequent and sometimes constant need for this kind of energy work —involving those jerks and tremors— is about, I would say in my own experience it is one of release. If something disturbs me mentally or energetically (and sometimes physically) —usually a form of resistance— I instantly have access to the energetical root of the problem —which I can sort of see through and catch— and then it expresses and releases itself in the form of tremors, jerks, twitches, puffs, yawning, and the need for self-performed acupressure on my skull. I actually do notice that over the course of time this process has enabled to let go of a lot of mental and energetical patterns which previously were making my life very difficult, as I didn't know how to let go of them before 2018. It does come however with certain drawbacks; Most of them have to do with convenience, but sometimes a "fit" can last very long and it get can a bit tiresome and then you tend to be impatient and just want it "to be over with" so you can start doing other things. But this is my experience of it. I understand that everybody's experience can and will differ, so don't take what I have written here as a guideline to how you will experience it, or what you think you have to do based on what I have written that I do.

I understand the paradox. If the ego is based on survival, then how is wanting to commit suicide a form of survival? I'm actually not entirely sure, but if I had to speculate it is that the ego-mind has a greater need for survival than the physical body. Hence it's why people are willing to die for certain values or ideologies. It also fits with the idea of reincarnation that we take many different bodies but the ego-mind persists throughout all of them. The mind is a bit more complex than the more basic survival needs of the body. The ego-mind also wants to survive, but it is not always realistic about what true survival entails. People craving drugs for instance, certainly don't have a better chance at survival if they are using drugs. Certain drugs over tome destroy a lot of mechanisms in the body making you more prone to disease and death. The ego-mind's survival is more about pleasure and pain on a mental level. Pleasure and pain is the guideline for the organism about how to survive. What the ego-mind considers to be something that would give it pleasure (like approval, status, knowledge, wealth etc...), it sees as something that helps for its survival, and something that is interpreted as undesirable it wants to escape. And the mind is so sophisticated that it can first create pain or fear, and then once again it resists the fear and pain that often it itself created, making itself go in a loop. Strangely enough, the survival mechanism of the mind that originally came from the body, is a survival mechanism that wants to escape itself. Usually it escapes its own discomfort by distraction and delusion, which at the same time was feeding the discomfort to begin with. Suicidal desires is indeed a form of survival, as paradoxical as that may sound. It's not for the survival of the body. but for the survival of the mind, which wants to escape pain.

I'd like to dive into an interesting topic here. The topic is about how our conceptualization of what a (spiritual) teacher should be and —in particular— act like, can be a great obstacle towards our spiritual potential. Let's take Osho by example. I must admit, I have invested a large amount of time into reading and digesting his teachings, so certainly there is the danger of instead of coming from an unbiased, objective viewpoint about the matter, there is the danger that I'm simply arguing to defend him, which I'm trying to avoid at all costs. That's why I want to start off with the statement: Even though I have invested so much energy into digesting his teachings and identifying myself as "a student of Osho". and having seen him as holy and infallible for some time, I do admit that the possibility now exists in my mind that he indeed strayed off the path, got too obsessed with his image and materialism, with all his Rolls royces. But note, I say POSSIBILITY. Because there are some very valid counterarguments, which I'm going to get into right now. Now what first has to be understood is that even the most enlightened people that ever existed can have blindspots, misinterpretations and delusions. That's why I always want to stress that you don't seek the most perfect teacher per se, but just go with a teacher or teaching you generally like, or even if it's the subject he/she is currently talking about, and learn what you ought to be useful or applicable for you at that time, and you still can discard (or just ignore; to not consider something) subjects or items that you don't resonate with that much. I think it's very unfortunate when people discard the entire teacher if they disagree with some points of the teaching, or in something that the teacher does. Many people have extraordinary qualities to convey a certain viewpoint, perspective or quality in a certain way, but that doesn't mean that this teacher would be infallible altogether. I used to always try gather information based on the few teachers I knew I could trust (or trust moreso), and discard any other teacher (or youtube channel, or whatever) that I felt weren't of a very high level of consciousness. I needed to be able to discern whether this teacher could be trusted enough before I could accept his/her teaching. When I wanted to know about a certain esoteric subject, I always used to google "Osho on [insert my subject of interest]", because I felt like I could trust Osho enough that he would give me an insight deep enough that I could be satisfied. Now I do it differently. When I want to know about a certain subject, now I more often just google it or search it on youtube, see the teaching that resonates with me the most at that time out of the list of results, and open myself up for it. And if I notice start getting bored or my attention starts drifting, or if the information at hand doesn't seem to get to the core, that's when I will probably switch to search information from the teachers I already knew, or just leave it be for that moment. But I'm now open to learn from everybody, and I know that everybody has a certain quality of teaching writing or expressing that is unique, even if the person isn't super "wise" there's still a lot you can learn from that person's teaching. Take both the energetical expression and the information that you like from it and are open to, and discard and ignore the rest. That is my advice. And understand, just because you're open to new input, doesn't mean you will automatically be corrupted or brainwashed by it. To open yourself up and surrender your resistance, doesn't mean you have lost your discerning quality for truth. The difference is that instead of actively judging whether you agree or not with what this person is saying, is that now you are simply listening with no judgement from your conditioning whether it is "right or wrong, correct or incorrect", but that your indicator is now simply whether you are bored or attentive, whether your attention is drifting towards the mind or towards attentive stillness. Attentive stillness, by the way, is not memorizing. Don't think you are not being attentive just because you aren't memorizing. Instead, it is vibing, it is feeling into it. And here's where the example of Osho comes in. Osho is probably the most controversial spritual teacher that has ever set foot on this earth. And I exactly love him for that. Not that controversy is necessarily always "good", so to speak, but his way of creating controversy I absolutely love to death. But that can also be personal preference, that I like controversial teachers. Perhaps because we're both Sagittarius, who knows. Controversiality is neither virtuous or sinful in and of itself. In case you don't know who Osho is: Osho is a spiritual teacher who spread his work primarily in the 70's and 80's, creating a whole lot of drama and controversy with his extremely direct, provocative and confrontational approach towards people and groups, criticizing them in a manner that got directly to the core of the issue, leaving no room for pampering. Or at least, that's the image that he was known for. Was he always like that absolutely 100% of the time? No. It's not a black and white scenario where you either always or never will have to do that, but he certainly wasn't afraid of it. He also very often contradicted himself, because he didn't value logical linearity. Speaking in favour of one argument one time, and going directly against it the next day. He was also very anti-traditional, radical and renewing in his approach. Often going diametrically against what people were trying to make of him or their ideas of what a guru should be or act like. This is where most of the criticism and controversy comes. But I can understand it perfectly well. Take the example of the Rolls Royces. If you don't know, one of the things Osho was known for was having a large collection of 99 Rolls Royces. I often see people, sometimes even very intelligent people and very nuanced thinkers, criticize Osho for his collection of Rolls Royces and his material possessions, and therefore discarding him as an enlightened teachers, because of his "obsession with materalism". Either he was obsessed with materialism, or this is in fact a genius move from Osho. You see, him being so anti-tradionalist, so outspokenly opposed to ideas people had attached themselves to of what a guru should be like, his possession of 99 Rolls Royces can be perfectly understood. It can be seen as a joke or a form of criticism against the ideas people have that a guru or enlightened spiritual teacher should have renounced material possessions or at least not be so obsessed with materialism. Osho's criticism against this was that materialism wasn't opposed to spirituality, but in fact they were synergistically interrelated to each other. In fact, if you fight against materialism, try to renounce it, you by the act of fighting it become once again obsessed with it. So with his collection of Rolls royces, his statement is: I am not concerned what image you make of me, I am not concerned about what you think of materialism; I am showing you that spirituality and materialism are in fact perfectly compatible, and even supportive to one another. Now you could say: Well maybe his attempt to try to create a synergy between spirituality and materialism was just a lousy excuse for him to be indulging in greed and attention, so it would make it seem okay for him to do so. Well... Maybe you're right. Or maybe you're not. Who knows. Like I said, on an intellectual level everything that Osho did can either be praised or rejected. It all depends on the perspective. Maybe he was in fact a very intelligent con-artist, having all these intelligent logical arguments and systems set up to safeguard his greed and need for attention and power. But here I'm simply trying to convey the perspective to be open-minded about that whatever he did was neither an argument in favour or against his 'enlightenedness'. But for myself, there's one thing I do know. And that is that he was, and still is more intelligent than me. Where do you think I learned to argue and write like this from? Where do you think I learned this capacity for very nuanced thinking and adhering paradoxical truths come from? It was for a big part from Osho. So whether he is enlightened or not, he was absolutely more intelligent and affluent than me, which in itself is already reason enough to learn from him. Remember that I said that you don't have to agree with the teacher to agree with the teaching. Remember? But for me that wasn't even the case. I just loved not only his words or actions, however contradictory or paradoxical it sometimes would be, but also just who he was, his entire personality and being. And one thing that also stood out to me was his presence, the stillness in which he moved and acted. Maybe that's the thing that most impressed me: that he never wavered and seemed to get off-balance or intimidated by anything at all, always perfectly grounded. We have to get rid of this idea of how an enlightened being is supposed to be and act like. The reality is: who are we to judge? Are we enlightened? Are we awakened? Are we of a higher degree of intelligence and consciousness then the ones we are judging? Don't delude yourself in this! We can think that someone enlightened is supposed to be like Eckhart Tolle, being very peaceful, relaxed and soothing, and that someone who is in many ways quite opposite to the energy that someone like Eckhart Tolle embodies is completely deluded and full of lust for power and greed. but does that have to be so? Is the expression of an awakened being universally one of a soothing, calming human being? Is a awakened master not able to be provocative in nature? How would we know? You have the archetype of a gautama buddha, someone who is soothing and compassionate, and the archetype of a Bodhidarma, someone who is fierce and provocative. My guess is that both are simply playing their role in existence. You have those who have a primarly feminine expression of awakening, and those who have primarily masculine expression of awakening. In fact, my feeling is that if we didn't have the Osho's or Bodhidharma's, something would be missing. You have the ones who tempt and persuade you carefully to look in the mirror, being careful that not too much egoic reaction is provoked at once, and you have those who basically throw the mirror in your face. And to my understanding, that is exactly how it should be. And perhaps there are also expressions of awakened beings that are neither outspokenly feminine or masculine. And also, I don't think every awakened being has to be a teacher. I feel like you can also have awakened beings working as artists, or as management in companies, or as CEO's, or as farmers, or whatever have you. So this essay is meant to be an illustrations that you're not supposed to judge a book by it's cover. What appears to be the case on the outside is not necessarily a representative of the quality of consciousness that drives the surface-expression. For someone who is unconscious, for someone who doesn't have an integrated and developed consciousness, is more apparent. Then what appears to be greedy behaviour is in fact most of the time an indication that this person has a lot of greed within. But with someone who is at a very elevated level of consciousness, things may be very different from what they appear to be. In that case, someone who appears to be longing for power may actually have completely selfless interests and only gets himself in a position in power as to selflessly serve humanity. So based on this, who do we choose to follow? What guru or teacher do we adhere to? Well, if we know that interpretations and ideas of what a teacher should be like can be entirely deceptive, the best thing we can do is to see if we can connect to a guru or teacher by opening ourselves up, by surrendering our resistance and simply allowing energy to flow. Then, instead of using mental guidelines as a basis to choose from whom to learn, we now become open to the direct transfer of silence itself without mind interfering it. Look for that: whether a silence, a stillness, an attentiveness starts arising in you. Do you feel more peaceful and connected when this person speaks? Does he or she radiate something that you can't really define what it is, but you can feel it's there? Search for a certain connection, not that this person can merely supply you with the right kind of knowledge; that would be my advice. But note: This connection starts with you dropping your ideas of whether or not it fits your conditioned idealogy. You have to work on yourself first to become available. You are the primary factor, not the teacher. Remember that. It is possible that the teacher can be very deluded, still deeply entrenched in maya, in illusion, and yet become awakened yourself simply by your capacity to surrender your resistance to him/her. So focus on dissolving your own resistance first and foremost. And if you can't find a teacher whom you will fall into silence with —whether you or the teacher is the primary factor— then simply seek out a teacher that doesn't bore you. Once again, this also depends on you as well.

If you want me to give you a few suggestions for teachers, here are some. Not all of them are gurus, by the way, but all of them have certainly impressed me: Eckhart Tolle, Adyashanti (love this one right now), Teal swan, Elliot hulse, RSDTyler/rsdfreetour, Ozen rajneesh, Sadhguru, Vishwananda, Osho

Having suffered from a degree of confusion that reached a point that left me crippled and paralyzed in bed, unable to make choices sometimes to the smallest details, questioning almost every existential matter possible, I believe I have a certain authority on this subject. After having have watched Leo's video on the topic of confusion —whilst he made some very valid points and I don't criticize his video as a whole altogether— it is my feeling that I am able to contribute even further to this topic, since I had to develop my own way and strategies on how to deal with an incredibly confused mind; A mind that didn't know what left or right was, that didn't know what forward or back was, what up or down was, what was going to help me or what was going to hurt me. The advice I'm going to give is to anyone who is sincere enough to face the fact of his own ignorance, to admit to himself that he doesn't know the answer to the dilemma he is in. If you try to resolve your confusion by clinging to some idea you have learned in the past, you are not being sincere to yourself. Also, the confusion I'm going to portray in my story is the confusion of facing the existential desert; it is the confusion where you have lost your orientation, and don't know where to go next anymore. I feel like many people face confusion, but it is not about being totally lost and disoriented as far as life itself is concerned; it is about facing an obstacle which you are unsure how to navigate around it. But beyond that obstacle, you still see a certain heading or direction. My confusion is about the deepest, existential confusion possible. Nevertheless, the advice I'm going to give at the end of the post is applicable for both "ordinary" confusion and "existential" confusion. Let me give you a short peek of my story. My story Having read and watched much material on the topic of spirituality and mysticism, particularly from Osho, I found myself eventually in a state where I started to lose my capacity to orient myself. If you know Osho, you know that his teaching can be incredibly contradictory and non-linear, primarily for the simple fact that his books have been derived from his talks, which often was oriented to answer questions, and he himself said that it was his purpose to answer the questioner instead of the question. This implies that he accounts for the questioner's unique situation, which means it is specifically applicable to that person, but may in fact be harmful to another person. But this was Osho's approach. I on one hand loved the many different perspectives he brought to the table, and the cleverness and intelligence he presented these perspectives, but on the other hand he never clarified a specific path, a certain clarity of which to derive orientation from, as far as your evolutionary progress of consciousness concerned. Maybe in one book he presented such a model to understand it, but in another book you would yet again feel contradicted. Regardless, eventually I became very confused to all this vast array of knowledge, as I had a large amount of perspectives, but no clear direction, or something that I could work towards. I was simply too confused, too overwhelmed by the vast amount of possibilites on literally every subject. Eventually this lead me so far down the rabbit hole I started to become suicidal. Not suicidal because I thought ending my life would be the solution to my problems, but rather, because I had this strong sense that SOMETHING had to be done amidst my complete paralysis, and not the idea of suicide, but the idea of pushing my pain so much I would perhaps have a transformation at the brink of suicide, appealed to my egoic mind the most at that time. The egoic mind had me completely in its grip, and this idea I had come across that only in absolute despair you are able to be transformed, somehow appealed a little bit to me too much, which I was trying to push the pain through suicidial behaviour. Of course, the idea that you need utter despair is also simply a perspective, which doesn't have to be valid or at least relevant to my situation, but it seemed very real to me at the time. After some time, I realized that it was going to be actual suicide (which I didn't want to do in the first place, so it was really a gimmick to begin with), or I needed not to hope for transformation, but to actually transform myself, which also wasn't going to be this one-time event. But if you're so incredibly confused, that every time you think of a possibility or perspective, then immediately your mind throws in the opposite viewpoint, discerning your initial plan, then it becomes incredibly difficult, because you have no idea what you're supposed to be doing in the first place. I would describe the situation you're in —or think you're in— at that point with being submerged in the sea on a moonless night, with no orientation whatsoever. You want to breathe, you in fact you want to breathe desperately, but you can't tell where the surface is. You don't know what is up or down, left or right, forward or backward... Then how to make a choice? What if you accidentally simply go deeper down into the sea and drown altogether? This is how the situation of utter confusion feels like. You feel like you're starting to run out of breath by the fatigue of the confusion you've already been battered with, but you're afraid to move of making the situation even worse. The reality in this metaphor is, however, that you in fact have gills, and that you need to start swimming for oxygen and thus life to run through your gills! Of course when you're still in the water there is no water running through your gills, and thus you're not deriving any oxygen from the water. But if you have gills, then it doesn't matter which direction you're swimming. But we'll get to that. So how did I manage to get myself out of such a state of confusion. Well... I will portray this by a quote from (who else but) Osho. What does this story imply? What does it signify? It is a metaphor for disorientation, for existential confusion. It is the stream of life. It tells us about how we are able to navigate the terrain of life with a certain capacity to orient ourselves. It doesn't mean the terrain is always smooth and cooperative, and sometimes there are obstacles which have to be navigated around, but at least we can recognize that they're obstacles as such. You may be confused, uncertain as to how to get around a certain obstacle, but at least you can see it as an obstacle and you know the terrain continues after that. But as far as the desert is concerned... Then what? For as far as you can see there are only dry sands, and you begin to dry up... Where to go? This story talks about the winds. About how to trust the winds to carry you over. It sounds absurds to the mind. What winds? You see yourself as seperate from the winds. You think you have to find your navigation by your own... but there is no landmark whatsoever for orientation. The winds portray the Tao; The winds signify the flow of existence, of life. The egoic mind is diametrically opposed against this flow. If you were to become one with this flow, it would mean ego death. So how can the ego possibly not resist it? It has to! But ultimately, the way to get out of this confused, disoriented state is to relinquish your personal resistance against life, against the flow of life, and allows yourself to be carried with it. What does this mean in practical terms? How did I apply this in my personal situation. Going beyond my confusion Realizing I needed to transform myself instead of waiting on a transformation to happen, I realized two essential things. First off, I needed a determination for myself, a commitment. I had read "when going through hell don't stop" from Douglas Bloch at that time, and the title couldn't be more appropiate. It is one of the best titles for a book ever made. It is exactly that: When you're in an incredible amount of suffering, then why stop exactly there? Then why get obsessed with it and start fighting and reacting against it? You won't manage to push it away; in fact, you'll only stop right in the middle of it instead of moving further. If you were in actual hell, but you knew it had a beginning and an end, would you stop there to go sightseeing whilst being consumed by fire? Of course not! So his book called for a longer-term determination. An attitude that no matter what happens, you'll keep setting one step at a time and hold this vision for yourself that things will get better. He also recommended a mood journal: noting down how your day went every day, rating it by a number. This can be very helpful, since it allows you to stay with it in a certain objectivity; You don't get as lost in your subjective experiences and judgements about yourself, but you stay objective to some degree. This is not necessarily a tool for dealing with confusion per se, since it also helpful for getting out any sort of ditch; be it depression, anxiety, or what have you. But it is definitely an essential attitude that I needed to develop at the time being, and it can help you too. The second important attitude I needed to change, and this one is relevant specifically to confusion, is that I needed to make choices for the sake of making choices itself. Instead of trying to make the best decision possible, the emphasis now shifted on making the choice anyways, on the capacity to make choices for choices sake. This meant many choices were made, with no idea on what basis I was making them. Sometimes I would choose A, sometimes I would choose B, and then the next day A again, and sometimes AB... or C... And with absolutely no (apparent) intuitive or mental foundation on to which base this decision! At least at first, it was all seemingly at random! There seemed to be no pattern to it. This was a major shift in focus, and required a great amount of trust. This trust is what the story was talking about, the story about the stream of life. This trust is something very mysterious, because where does this trust come from? How do you know you can trust this trust? What guaranteed me that simply making choices for choices sake was going to get me out of all this confusion? It certainly wasn't something that was immediately obvious when I started to attempt to trust this trust, that showed itself clearly that "this is the way". But somehow, this trust somehow always remained somewhere on the background from that point on. Even when it seemed faraway and sometimes even appeared nonexistent, it always remained on the background somewhere, sometimes without me noticing it. Why was this trust there? What logical basis was there to show me that I could rely on this trust? There was none, as I've already been able to doubt absolutely anything anyways. And neither was there a sense of intuition that I was aware of that was guiding me. But when times are so rough that there is really no other alternative than to evolve, miracles can happen. A response from your being then comes stronger than the objections than your mind can make, and you now start functioning from a complete unknown source, a source not supported by the mind or logic, or even by feelings, how I felt about something. Because I had made choices by logic alone, which ultimately had failed, and I had made choices from feelings alone, which ultimately had failed. On top of that, any "feeling-intutive" sense also now seemed to be obscured by the excessive mind activity. Now how to make choices? From what center? But I had to make choices, so that's what I did. By and by, functioning from an unknown source became more comfortable to me. I still didn't know for sure I was making the right choices or decisions, and there still showed no consistent, reliable pattern, but the anxiety about "needing to make the right choice" seemed to cease more and more. I became more relaxed in it. That's when it started to become more and more clear to me that it was never about the choices and decisions I made in the first place —it never was— but about the quality of how you make your decisions, and how whole-heartedly you make those decisions. Then you can relax in it, whatsoever you choose to do. The decisions you make now come from a deeper place. I call it: Being-intuition. How does my experience apply to you? (advice part) Understand that you reading this may not have reached the point yet where you are able to act the same way I now act, regarding the way I make decisions, but nevertheless there are some things I wish I would've known when I was at the height of my confusion. Let us first be clear about what confusion actually is. In its most simple definition: The need to know. If you are confused, it means you need to know something, otherwise something within you remains unsatisfied. Isn't it a little bit strange? Can't existence be fine without you understanding it? Babies don't know anything at all, yet they're perfectly happy. But our minds want to be able to grasp, want to understand, are afraid of the unknown. If we want confusion to settle, we need to let go of our need to know. But ultimately, this is not possible in the beginning. The compulsion to understand is too great even if we intellectually understand and agree that ultimately there is nothing that we can and should try to know. Just because we are aware that there is no necessity to know, does not mean we are instantly able to stop this momentum of unsatisfiable curiosity. Nor should we. Acknowledgement of the fact that we do not know the answer is the first step. Acknowledgement that there is no need to ultimately know anything nor could we, is the second step. Or I should say: Acknowledgement of the fact that the possiblity of the previous statement exists. It has not been your experience yet that nothing could or should be known, and just because I say so may convince your mind, but it will not convince the deeper core of your being, of your system. For that reason, if you have the need to really ponder and contemplate upon a certain subject, don't hesitate to do so! If you live by the idea that nothing can be known and nothing should be attempted to try to know anything, you're going directly against yourself. For you, this is simply an idea that is being presented to you; It has not been your reality yet. If you try to avoid confusion or questioning, you will be fighting against yourself, you will start become divided and ultimately this will lead to a lot of unnecessary suffering. What needs to happen is that your intellectual sword of the many opposing perspectives and ideas need to be sharpened to such an extent, that just by experience you start to see the futility of it. The futility is of the fact that despite having all this knowledge, all these perspectives, all these ideas, you still don't know how to live by them. You still don't know how to implement them into your own life. You still don't know how to integrate them, where to find the balance, which perspective to apply when, and how to actually live it! The map is not the territory! But this can only happen when you take your contemplation, your questioning and pondering to the most extreme degree possible for you, as to where you will start to see the futility of your knowledge as far as your happiness is concerned by your own experience. Then naturally, you will want to step away from this knowledge because it's becoming too heavy for you. So, paradoxically, the sword of knowledge needs to be sharpened to a degree that it is sharp enough to cut away from itself! If it's blunt it can not cut itself away. Go figure that one out And be very, very honest to yourself. If you try to delude yourself by holding onto an old fixated perspective or by avoiding a certain perspective out of fear because of what implications it could have if it were true, you are only making the process more difficult for yourself But there's one important thing to notice: Just because I give you permission to ponder, question and contemplate, as you should, doesn't mean that you can't take a break from it. Here's what I recommend: I say that whenever a question is on your mind, or that whenever you want to clarify and go deeper into a certain perspective because you are curious how deep the rabbit hole goes, then go and do so. Personally, I'd recommend taking a walk. Taking a walk always helped me quite a bit because it allowed my thoughts to be a little bit clearer and sharper, and thus it significantly made this contemplation process easier. It may not work the same way for you that way, but for me taking a walk definitely helped me. Alternatively, you can also write down your thoughts and get them on paper (or Word or whatever). Then if you write them down, they will have a certain solidity to it. This can also help tremendously. So, if you're then going out taking a walk whils pondering, writing down your thoughts, or just sitting at home contemplating, go as deeply into the matter as possible. Think or write down all the thoughts and perspectives and ideas you can come up with for that time being, and at some point you will notice that either you are out of relevant, renewing thoughts, or your mind simply gets too tired from all this thinking. So at this point is where you decide to let it all down, and just leave it be for now. Now you can give yourself permission to let it all go just for that moment, because you cleared up everything that was possible for you at that moment. Take some rest now, do something else, and later on you'll either go deeper into the same subject, or start pondering upon a new subject (or an interrelated subject), which you can then explore until your mind gets tired. This I found to be the healthiest expression of dealing with confusion. I only learned this after I got through the climax of my personal period of confusion. By the way, after that climax, that crescendo of confusion has ended, there will still be confusion and questioning sometimes, but it will gradually become less and less (intrusive). So: Don't fight confusion, don't pretend that you're above it all and should attempt not to try to know something, but go into it as your mind desires to. If the topic is too much in the forefront of your mind, then allow it to surface! Don't fear confusion, go through it! Do you think you will be able to avoid your matters of confusion for the rest of your life? If you have just a little bit of intelligence, these questions will keep on coming back, demanding your attention to answer them. Now once again, they will not ultimately be answered, as nothing can ultimately be known for sure by the mind, but your perspectives, arguments and viewpoints will be as sharp as you can possibly get them. And when your mind gets too tired, or you're out of renewing ideas and perspectives, at that moment, drop it. Now you are able to. And if you keep on doing this and persisting in questioning, you will reach a point where almost everything has now been questioned and almost every existential perspective (at least the ones that are relevant to you at that moment) have now been clarified, and now the matter of how to drop this questioning mind will come to the forefront by itself. Now it's not something you're trying to make happen, now it's something that starts happening by it own; Now you start questioning the very nature of questioning itself, not because you thought you should, but because your system now requires that from you. And that is the moment that you start moving completely into the unknown. Now you start making decisions from which you do not know on which logic you make them from. If you persist in making decisions and choices on an illogical basis long enough (and notice, the idea of making "illogical decisions" can become another obsession by the mind), you'll now start to connect with true being-intuition. The difference between being-intuition and the more common feeling-intuition is that feeling-intuition just considers how you feel about something, whereas being-intuition both considers how you feel about something, and what you think is necessary to do in that situation, what your mind tells you, and then takes both centers into persective and makes a choice based from the unknown, the unknowable. That is being-intuition: Making choices from the unknown, yet with a strange, unexplainable sense of certainty if you really start to connect with it, which will not happen at first. But at first when you're moving out of confusion, you'll have to make choices anyways, even if you have no sense of certainty whatsoever or what you're doing or why you're doing it. So in conclusion: Questioning is good, it is normal, and should not be repressed. Confusion is only a sign that you're moving forward. Only idiots are not confused. Only idiots can live a life of apparent certainty. You are not such a person, otherwise you would most likely not be reading this. You should be aware from the very getgo that the perspective exists that ultimately nothing can be known at all with certainty by the mind, but if this is merely an idea to you and not an experience, hold the perspective in the back of your mind but don't attach yourself to the idea that "I don't know" either. So question, wonder, ponder, and don't hold back, until your mind temporarily gets tired and you actually feel like dropping it. And when questioning, wondering and pondering, go on a walk or start writing. This can help elevate your level of mental clarity, thus helping the process. And on a longer, more permanent basis, when the whole thing altogether gets too much, and you really want to drop this mind altogether, then you need to start accepting to be absorbed into the flow of life. How do you start doing that? If your realization is deep enough, you will be able to drop it by making decisions based on what appears to be thin air, on no logical basis. And notice: Making decisions based on feelings is also making them "on a logical basis", meaning you logically use your feelings. You can use logic to make decisions, and you can also use your feelings to make decisions, but they are not the primary core of which your decisions come from, they can simply act as facilitating information for the unknown to act from. This may sound as very strange and uncomprehensible to you, but it is only a matter of time until you reach this stage and you will start to understand by experience what I'm talking about. All of this has been at least my experience, my point of view. I can not attest with absolute certainty that what I've described will be the path for everybody, but I reckon it certainly will be for many, because if it could happen in this way to me, it means there were universal laws that allowed and made it to be so, and those universal laws will also apply to other people aswell, though the details may differ. Also notice that you don't necessarily have to go to the same degree of confusion and despair I found myself in. I was a lunatic. And with this guide, I hope to prevent in you the same degree of total confused disorientation Good luck

It's indeed a very strange, insatisfiable itch to be wanting to know everything. But it serves us in the longer run, as we are so sophisticated that no idea ultimately has power over us, because there's always an opposite perspective you can take and can argue for. That's the beautiful thing about it, actually. I should have perhaps talked more clearly on what the benefits were with all this questioning. One of the benefits in the end is: no particular idea has power over us, there is no need for something to be done or something needing to happen anymore, since you can understand and argue how everything that did not go according to the way we wanted it, still can serve us a purpose, and possibly makes it so that we're better off in the end. There's always a counterargument, so how to know what is the best for us? And if we sincerely don't know what is the best possibility, action or outcome, then what need to be anxious about it? This really frees us and allows us to relax, granted that we have started to let go of the need to know in the first place. Really, the need to know implies we actually haven't completely come to turns with our own ignorance. Plus, our own intellectual sharpening allows us to pass it on to others, and provide them perspectives that can help them that they couldn't have come up with on their own.

In this essay, I will try my best to use the language of logic to indicate the significance of the illogical for those who are too attached to logic, yet I will also argue against the illogical for those who are too attached to the dimension of the heart. Then, I'm trying to create a holistic perspective in which both are integrated, but neither one of them has become an attachment. This will have its limitations, because the first "illogicality" I was talking about was in a certain sense still logical. That illogicality can still be logically pointed out why it is functional. So there's a certain rationality towards that dimension of being irrational. However, there is a certain point where no matter how strong your logic is, a leap will have to be taken into trust. Trust, genuine trust (not faith or belief), requires you to take a jump into the absurd, the unexplainable, the unknowable: not having the capacity to be understood by the mind. This I call the truest form of absurdity, of illogicality. It's difficult to argue why this has so much significance to take this jump; you will have to experience it, that's the only way. However, there are still some pointers I can provide, some perspectives that can be utilized. But obviously, only the direct experience can free you and truly make you understand it, and not a intellectual agreement of it, though this can be the first step. Firstly, let's discuss the matter of why atheism/rationalism, and its loyal brother called "science", is an act of limiting yourself and ultimately an ego strategy for keeping you stuck. Often times, people ask for "evidence" when a certain statement is made within the realm of religiousity or spirituality, or even just general self-development. The problem is, that such a thing cannot be proven as an absolute truth by its very nature, because everybody is different. Science is good for the development of new technologies and the discoveries of universal truths, such as the realm of physics and mathemathics. However, as far as the matter of humanity is concerned, things really start becoming much more complex. The realm of spirituality, religion and even psychology are cluttered with paradoxes and opposites. What is poison for one person, can be the cure for the other one. It all depends on the makeup of someone's system: one's heart, one's beliefs, one's conditioning, one's personality and so forth... For this reason, how can science and psychology provide any evidence for a technique that would work for all? Impossible! We are all unique individuals, and there is no absolute truth that works for everyone all the time. At least, as far as the conventional perspective is concerned. From the perspective of the absolute, of the all, then perhaps there are truths that work for everyone. Let me give you an example. Take the statement: Love frees you from suffering. Is this true? I would definitely say so. However, what happens when people start taking this statement very seriously? Then people start to act loving, to pretend they are loving, to believe they are loving, when in reality they carry a lot of judgement, resentment, hatred and so forth within them. In reality, the action that is required for them could be to become very assertive, dismiss people out of their lives, start saying "NO!", become angry at someone and defend themselves from hurt that others can inflict upon them. It's not to say that THAT is the absolute truth either for happiness and peace, but it is the relative truth that at that moment works for them, because that is a part they need to develop at that point. True love is only possible when you know how to defend and assert yourself. True love also doesn't mean to always be soft, kind and gentle towards people. Sometimes it is necessary to be harsh and to deliver uncomfortable truths to people directly. Again, relative truths that they need to embody at that stage of their development. Do you see the limitations of science here in the fields of psychological development? Humans are incredibly complex, and a particular advice can be poison for one person and medicine for the other. It all depends what part of them they need to develop at that particular stage in their evolution. Sometimes masculine values have to practiced, and sometimes feminine values. What I just argued for wasn't necessarily against atheistic viewpoints so much; It didn't do much to disprove the notion of a purely materialistic and accidental reality, as atheists believe, but my feeling is that many rationalists turn towards science to explain for them how to live, and my argumentation was to support the dismissal of this notion. Then, if we understand the complexity of our psychology, and we realize that there are no absolute truths and therefore techniques or methods we can eternally hold onto, we may start to realize that our intellectual systems will eventually be limiting towards progressing further in our evolution. Then, we may start looking for a different center from which to make decisions from. This is where the heart comes into play: The world of feelings and emotions. However, what usually (if not always) happens is that instead of understanding that an integration between heart and mind needs to take place, which allows the intuition of the soul to truly open up, we start instead becoming identified with our feelings and we dismiss the cold rationality of the mind. It's not that the mind now has completely disappeared, but that it now utilizes the heart for its beliefs and decisions. It's not that at this point that the identification with the mind has been transcended, but that the mind now simply doesn't purely function from itself only. Feelings now have a great significance, and certainly they do have a great existential importance, but the irony is that the mind starts dismissing its own analytical processes; at least on the surface level. In reality, the mind is still running the entire business, but the underlying belief one is now attached to is: "I should go by what feels right". One does now realize the importance of connection, love, communion, empathy and so forth, but fails to understand that the mind has to be used in this physical reality. Mind has its purpose, and needs to be used consciously, instead of being dismissed. If we fail to integrate our heart and mind, we then start becoming too "weak". We become too floaty, too undriven, too undisciplined. We start dismissing rational, logical decisions which would've helped us further or prevented us from getting in trouble because "It doesn't feel right" Ultimately, this will backfire on us. This is the hypocrisy that —often cold-hearted— rational people such as atheists can see in people who are too identified with their emotions and feelings, as we are experts in pointing out the flaws of our polar opposites, but fail to see the dysfunctionality within ourselves. So naturally, scientists, atheists, rationalists, and all the types of people who are functioning almost purely from their mind and logical systems, feel a great resistance towards the people who get so caught up in their emotions and feelings, as they can see that they get nothing done, that they lack a "down-to-earth" approach, that they are too much floating around in the skies, that they lack self-control and discipline. And certainly, there is a certain truth to this. However, if we dismiss our subjective reality entirely, then we set ourselves up for a great amount of suffering. Then we keep in our emotions, then we start to feel disconnected from existence and other human beings, then we repress our desires if they don't correlate to our rationalist perspective, then we start becoming overwhelmed by stress and anxiety... You may become very succesful in the material world, but you'll realize it's all hollow and you're still the same unhappy person as you were before. In fact, you are unhappier now because you now got what you thought you needed to be happy, but you're still not happy. Now, hope also starts slipping out of your hands. The only way out of this is to start realizing the significance of your subjective reality; You start honouring your feelings, your emotions. You allow yourself to cry or to express joy and laughter in a very frivolous, free-flowing manner. This can be a great relief to your system, and you start to realize the significance of feelings and emotions. However, as I have already explained, the mind tends to swing to the polar opposite. At first we may have honored our rationalism to a great degree, but as we started seeing the pain of our lack of emotional awareness, we now tend to become very antagonistic towards what we first considered to be so valuable. Somehow, we often start to forget all the hypocrisy we saw in people who became very identified with their emotions and feelings. I have already explained what this can result in. Let's get into the next phase. There comes a point when we start once again see the limitations of this identification with all these feelings and the dismissal of the mind, as we were able to when we were still rationalists. However, if we've lived through this phase of feeling-identification, we now start to realize that both heart and mind has a certain significance. This is the door to wisdom. We start to understand that both the language of the heart and the mind has a certain significance. What we don't immediately understand however, is how to proprely integrate both of them. We now start to try to philosophize and figure out logical systems in which we can somehow apply a technique, a strategy, a method as on how to integrate them. We think and think, and the more we go into the many perspectives on what ground or logic we can make our decisions on, the more we start to realize that there is always an opposite perspective to whatever standpoint we take. We use logic —the mind— to try and integrate mind and heart, but again and again we fail to truly understand how to find this balance, because if we really go deeply into it, we always realize that an opposing argument is just around the corner for whatever standpoint we try to take. This can lead to greats amount of confusion, because we don't know what is left and right anymore, what's up and above, what will help us and what will hinder us, what is forward and what is backward... Life can start becoming really difficult and, as was my personal experience, you can come to a point where you become so confused that it paralyzes you to the point where all you do is lay in bed all day, just thinking —even though you're physically perfectly health— and the confusion and thoughts become so crippling that you lose the motivation to do anything at all, except for perhaps supplying the needs for your physical survival. This is the dark night of doubt and confusion, which I personally probably went into more extremely than 99% of people ever will, granted people will reach this stage in their life in the first place. It got me to the point where I started considering and attempting suicide. And it was not merely because I wanted the pain to stop (as I was very open to the idea of reincarnation, this seemed rather futile anyways), but because all other ideas had failed for me, I now had the idea that perhaps if I push the pain to so far that it reaches a certain limit, then perhaps it will somehow instantly transform me, or at least reverse the direction that my life seemed to be heading in. I'm talking about the pain you experience when you're on the edge of death, but haven't made the last step into it yet. So it wasn't really about actually ending it, but pushing the pain to such an extreme so that perhaps something would crack in me and I would have some sort of transformation. It was a last-resort solution, no other idea seemed to work for me anymore. Eventually, I started to realize that this wasn't going to work out for me either. Either it was going to be actual suicide, or a complete change in attitude. Even though I had very strong doubts and fears that it would actually work, there was just one thing I could think of. And that was this: I simply had to make decisions, not knowing whether they were right or wrong, not knowing whether they were helpful or hindering, not knowing whether it was going to make things better or worse, but making decisions for the sake of learning to make decisions, and committing to them (for that moment), as much as I can. It was completely stepping into the complete unknown, having all my intuitive capacities of feeling what I should be doing overshadowed by doubts and fears, and despite all of that still making decisions, and somehow, for no logical explanation at all, still trusting myself and existence in spite of all the worries, that I was heading in the right direction. This is the trust I want to talk about. This is the trust I can not —despite all my clever philosophical capacities— make an argument for as to why to go with it. Except for that it works. Where one who is identified with feelings only may call his/her decisions based on trust, it is still based on faith and identifying with a mental position, namely: "I should go with what feels right". It seems like you're trying to go with your intuition, but in fact, you're not. You're going with a mental position, where your heart simply facilitates your head. Or perhaps I should say: you're going with feeling-intuition, but not with being-intuition. Being-intuition seems in some ways similair to feeling-intiution, but in fact it is radically different. This is the type of intuition that I can not explain or argue in favour for to any rationalist. With feeling-intuition, I can still show the rationalist the significance of feelings and emotional expression as to unburden himself. With being-intuition, my hands are tied. It is a mystery as to what it is. Sometimes it tells you to go with "what feels right", thus implying heart. Sometimes it tells you to go with "what needs to be done", thus implying mind. And sometimes it is somewhere in between. But of course, it doesn't take up a mental position. It simply decides. And you trust it. How can you trust it? How do you know it won't deceive you? Well, there's no way to argue it away, but you simply trust it. It is letting the unknown function through you, and the only indication that this is the right thing to do is the sense of tranquility and peace you get from going along with it, which doesn't mean it stays away from discipline and things you really don't feel like doing. Often times, I don't really even know if I'm listening to my being-intuition or if i'm getting identified with either a mental or emotional (feeling-intuition) position. I'm not so acquianted with it just yet. I've only started to become somewhat acquainted with turquoise for less than a year now [reference to spiral dynamics model]. To differentiate being-intuition from and identification with an idea or feeling is very difficult to notice, very subtle. Most characteristic about it, I would say, is that the element of confusion or hesitation has started disappearing from it. Not that you know for sure this is the right decision, at least intellectually, but there's is no need to be sure anymore. You start to understand that the problem all along was not the decisions you were making, but the division within yourself you were creating when you were making your decisions. One part of you said you should do A, another part said you should do B. Perhaps you were identified with the position of A, but still your unconscious desired for B (or vica versa), so you were in conflict. Perhaps you were genuine enough to see both the validity of A and B, but were unsure as to what to choose, thus still in conflict. Now, with this being-intuition, the decision you make is not important anymore. You can choose A, and that's fine. You can choose B, and that's fine. Perhaps you can even choose AB, and that's also fine. Or perhaps today you choose A, and tomorrow you choose B, and eitherway it is still fine. Now, you start to become truly flexible: being able to switch between a feminine, passive modality to a masculine, active modality very quickly, for whatever the situation requires. You realize that none of this really matters, as long as there is not conflict within you making decisions. Finally, you really start to realize there's no need to worry at all, because you've come to the absolute realization of your own ignorance, so why be worried? You don't know anyways. You can't know! All this worry and striving and contemplating and pondering and disciplining and attempting to accept, trying to not try... All of that was just a complete joke! And you don't even renounce striving, or contemplating or anything like that. If it's a joke, then why avoid it? Jokes are to be played around with. If you start fighting with a joke, it won't be a joke anymore. In realizing all of this, true spirituality and peace starts to become available to you. Finally, you're approaching the promised land, which in reality was never anywhere else but here to begin with. But... Don't take what I say as a philosophy. You have to apply the specific lessons that are relevant for you right now. Your situation is different than mine. Be genuine with yourself, and see what the specific lesson is that you need to learn right now. Don't try to avoid it, even if it is very painful. The only way to peace is to go through the pain of facing yourself, facing your demons. There is no other way. Avoidance is simply delay. What's the point in delay?