Raptorsin7

@ardacigin I did 2 hours of meditation today, with like a 30 second break when i moved from my couch to a chair. I had a lot of resistance from thoughts around school and I didn't reach any state of effortlessness, joy, or happiness. But I have winter break coming up soon and i plan on doing a bunch of days of long sits. I will keep trying to find happiness and joy in my sits. Also, your content is awesome keep posting man!

@Lynnel @wesyasz Imagine someone commenting on your meditation journal and belittling you because you aren't meditating long enough. "Wow you're only doing 10 minutes you aren't going to make any major changes doing only 10 minutes, you need to do minimum an hour to notice real benefits. Might as well not meditate at all". All you're doing here is hurting her chance of being successful.

@Amandine Don't worry about people telling you what you SHOULD do. You know what you should do, and more importantly you know you what you can do right now. The long term goal is to quit alcohol or at least reduce the amount a lot. Keep it up you can do it.

@dimitri Dude i am loving your posts recently. I feel like i'm behind you follow your breadcrumbs Lol. Keep it up. Keep writing what's working for you and what you're doing, Super helpful

@lostmedstudent I have done it. It was not hard for me, and to be honest I have struggled with discipline and procrastination a lot during my life so i bet you can do it. I think it can be really effective to just create some perspective on your life because that day will completely shatter your routine and current mode of operating. Right now you have negative momentum so you're just feeding your own unhappiness and unsatisfaction with life. You have to break the cycle, and this can be a good way to break it. If it seems like too much to do then you have to start smaller. Do something you like, or listen to inspiring music. You have to get some momentum moving in the opposite direction, and to start it has to be something that you believe you can actually do.

This what I believe is true of reality: The voice inside my head. The person. Me. Tj. This person think it's controlling the experience. But in reality there is just an experience happening right now. And the real me, the feeling of me, is always present as the experience. You are the entire experience. Always. You just convinced yourself that you were the one directing experience. Eventually the voice in my head will lose control. Slowly but surley I must loosen the grip of the person, the thought story, on my life. The story needs to surrender to the present. The present is where I live. The real me lives in the present. I wonder if my intellectual understanding of non-duality is just beyond my actual experience so i'm misinterpreting things? This is consistent with what @Nahm said but i'm not sure.

I'm going to use this journal to deconstruct my beliefs about reality. I'm going to question everything i believe to be true of direct experience, and try to get at the truth of all my beliefs about reality. I feel like I understand the non-dual nature of reality. But honestly i'm not sure. Sometimes I feel like I get it then I get pulled into another thought story about my life and engage some weird procrastination behavior. I've realized everything is a distraction to understanding the truth, and there is a lot of resistance when I turn my attention to the feeling of me. This is actually a good thing. The resistance I feel when attention goes to my self is a sign that something important is happening there. When in doubt follow the resistance until I can learn the truth. This is the frontier. I'm about to take my first steps down a path that will change the rest of my life. I'm making a bold prediction then I will be enlightened or at the very least unconditionally happy by the time winter break is over.

@Raphael Ok sounds wise. Good luck friend

@Raphael Wow that's cool. Are you going for enlightenment?

@Raphael Why are you meditating? What made you start?

@ROOBIO I'm in the same boat lol. Have you started Leo's course yet? Are you on the path to enlightenment?

@Leo Gura No it doesn't have to necessarily. Orange people all have a similar conception of what god is. They assume so many things about god before you even bring it up. That's why you have to be careful when talking to them and teaching them. Orange people want to be happy, successful, and self actualized. If you phrase god in a way that targets those points then you can be successful. Chopra did none of this. But i see some of your point about Sam. He either doesn't understand non-duality or he doesn't respect it at all. Both of which aren't good. But Chopra is nonetheless being dumb here.

@Leo Gura Science is trying to uncover truth. The entire audience is pretty much stage orange, rationalist. There's a way to present non-duality to these people in a way that doesn't sound like complete nonsense. Chopra just turned off that entire group, and pretty much everyone watching from non-duality. He is doing a disservice to the truth. Science is progressing. If i had to bet my life on science or religion to carry humanity forward I would bet my life on science 10/10 times. Science will get there. It just needs to be guided in the right direction. Chopra is doing the opposite of that. Sam knows more than you give him credit for. He's not enlightened or anything but he is important conduit for stage orange rationalists to dabble in spirituality and meditation. Classifying him as ignoramus like you do is a disservice.

@Spiral Wizard Why do you want a dating coach?

@Leo Gura Chopra doesn't even understand what he's saying. He's doing non-duality a disservice by applying to it to science in a haphazard way. Non-duality is not antagonistic to science. It can be incorporated. Chopra is just doing a bad job here.

@ardacigin Thank you very much. I did one day super long day of yoga, and meditation and I feel like that day turned me into true seeker. I will do another day like that. Tonight I will try to do at least a 2 hour sit.

@Fede83 Keep letting go. That will eventually encompass letting go of people who make you feel like wanting to let go.

@Preety_India So when you were writing about being depressed etc. You had negative momentum. Think of your life as a ball rolling down a hill. When your life sucks and you feel bad, the ball will roll down the hill and you will just feel worse and worse because every decision you made in the past was made while feeling bad. But now it seems like you're feeling a bit better. You are trying to improve your life, and are worrying about your own happiness. Now you have positive momentum. The more good things you do in the moment will feed the future you, and will have a ball rolling down a hill full of positive stuff. The more positive stuff you do now will lead to more positive things in the future. Try and be aware of when you are making decisions from a place of feeling bad or depressed. Compared to making decisions from a place of happiness and growth.

@Preety_India Do you know about the concept of momentum and how it relates to personal development?

@ardacigin Did you get all these insights just from following the book? I'm at a point in my practice where I have pretty stable attention and awareness, but I have virtually no joy or happiness from my practice. I'm basically just suffering, getting relief from suffering when i sit to meditate, and then i'm just lost in thought and procrastinating the rest of the day.

Why do gurus always claim that they can't actually point to the non-dual nature of reality. They always say whatever you think it is... that's not it. They say they can't actually show you it, they can only point you in it's direction. Can someone elaborate on this problem. What is it about non-dual awareness that makes it so difficult to point out. How can the non-dual teaching be ever present, and yet no one can actually point to it directly?

@FoxFoxFox Is everyone searching for truth? And they just don't realize it?

@Ingit I'm just talking shit. I'm not enlightened, don't listen to what i say as truth. I just said it cuz it felt right. Watch Leo's video about how to ace life. He talks about the role of resistance in improving your life. When your meditating though my advice would be investigate where you are scared to go, or are afraid to go.

@RaphaelHow did you get into the flow state during your meditation? Do you remember what steps you took? I can never get into flow, there is always so much resistance.