Eph75

Although we are not whole until we realize we can be. We can't be whole if we have attachments to desires that hold the idea that if only I had this or that, then I will be whole. If today you are attached to the idea that you need a relationship, that desire when not met make you feel incomplete. Addressing your attachments, among other traits of the ego that are limiting you from being what you could be, you will find yourself detaching from old beliefs that you held true. This goes the same for the need for social connections and belongings as much as it does to attachment tto materialism in the sense that having either of these will make you fulfilled. In fact it is the "needs", the "desires" that make you miserable - or "feeling not complete". The trick with this insight is that you might think that becoming detached to say materialism means that you should not own things. This is not true. In fact when you have had this awakening you see that the desire via material things have owned you, you did not own the thing. The desire or things owned you. Once you have had that insight two things can happen; 1) the thing had lost its meaning as the underlying desire has gone away, you no longer see a point in owning the thing. This can be a transition phase as well, a counter-reaction to the insight, I get it so now I do not want it. 2) the thing holds no power over you, as the desire is gone. You are not owned by the idea that, say, a sportscar will make you happy. But you also realize that there is no problem owning a sportscar, they are cool and fun to drive. This can also be a second stage reaction after having done #1. The exact same thing goes for the desire of relationships, friendships, partnership, social belonging. The idea of having to fulfill the desire to have that belonging can become a fixation. Detaching from that desire completely changes the dynamics between you and the subject you had the desire for. That does not mean you can not have that relationship, it just does not hold any power over you in defining who you are. There is a difference between having and needing where the latter is trying to fill a gap, an underlying need. That need is your limitation(s). Understand them, process them and rid yourself of the attachments they result in - and you will wake up to already being complete/whole. Or rather, that you have been spending you life chasing desires for bizzare reasons.

Yes sorry, I should have written "missing out on something" rather than "wrong". And yes, that was addressing you @the-philogynist

You don't just have to "let go", spirituality can mix nicely with the self-help aspect of processing and adding understanding, which in turn can help with increasing the chance for acceptance and the ability to let go. But yes, self-help is about fixing something while spirituality is about realizing that there is nothing wrong to begin with.

It will be interesting what suggestions others can give you. Increasing time might push you to towards getting the access concentraion you need in order to get to deeper consciousness states. In a sense, punch through the eye of the needle. But chance is that you just spend the added time chasing thoughts. Time of day of meditation can matter. Diet can matter. What the day look like in general can matter a lot, e.g. if there is a lot of stress. Whatever happens, stay strong and good luck.

The dogma.. What if.. just what if you have got this wrong. Stay with that thought. Explore the possibility. There you find the opportunity for growth.

Are they thoughts that you can address later, e.g. that they are calling out to you to take action in some matter - or - are they just odd random stuff not related to your life and hence not possible to address?

Things happen. If you put someone up on a pedestal then you are bound to get disappointed. He is still human. Humans make mistakes. What good does hating him for the rest of your lives do? Talking to someone is good. Talking to him might be the hardest thing, but such a constructive talk without hostility is probably the most useful thing, if you can manage such a talk.

Well, you should be able to build up your concentration also in 20 minutes. What aid are you using to keep concentration, following breath and counting breaths?

Getting fucked up takes many years, unfucking yourself takes time, it is not just a decision away. It requires constant disciplin and intent, there will be relapses, over time they will decrease, just keep at it, never fall back into unconsciousness in regards to when this happens and what actions you take. Eventually it stops, at least if you have understood the underlying mechanics, otherwise you are likely to regress when under pressure. It sounds like you are expecting to have yourself all figured out. It is a life long journey. What you can tweak is yourself and how you relate to whatever happens. As Bukowski wrote, "what matters most is how well you walk through the fire".

Increase meditation time. Are you successful with your meditation, no or little distraction while meditation? Longer sessions also dramatically increases the results.

Is your mind easily distracted in general? Then meditate to learn to turn off the mental chatter that easily distract you when reading. Audiobooks might help, but if you are easily distracted then you will likely have the same problem.

Sweet ?

That may be so, but there are things you write that contradict this, so the agrumentation is in a sense stuck, running in a circle, trying to "rub somthing in", in you, but since we know it don't work that way, the most interesting thing to do, for you, would be to go back and try to figure out what that could be. That would/could result in such a stretch (sorry about the stretch reference, I wa editing my post while you replied) ?

The problem is that you are arguing against an enlightenment insight without you yourself having had the insight. That in itself make sense, because without having experienced this insight in first person, it would/could just sound like lofty gibberish. But in fact, it makes perfect sense, once you experience it yourself. Further more an interesting thing is that arguing against even more cements your mind in dogma. Let go of the dogma and be curious, you mind might open up, if you are willing to learn to know. Keep in mind that consciousness evolution is not about knowledge, you don't simply consume and regurgitate information and then have a perienced developmental growth. That is not how such vertical development happens. Your mind needs to stretch and in order to stretch you have to deliberately let go of the hold you have on your dogmas. Even with a particular insight, there may be disagreements, but also an insight is that perception is only that, much as myself don't particularly like all that rubbing in of everything being illusion, but that is alright, because perception holding the power to present truth in different shapes, the illusion or imagination I mention is just that, perception is illusory. Argumentation is the ultimate paradox. It makes no sense to argue when holding that insight, which makes this forum so dogmatic.

It allows you to see "yourself" in a new and different way. It changes everything, but it is the same. In a sense a perspective shift. A new way of making sense of "what is". In the end the world you see is the world you are experiencing. There is no separation between anything, spirituality, whatever insights there are and your life, world, job, relationships. They are all still there, if you choose them to be. You see them differently, they might not carry the same meaning or value to you anymore, but they are no less real as real as anything you ever experience. They "are", and there is no separation. It is all within non-duality. Non-duality cjabges how you relate to those things. Again, changes the relationship, the perspective. That does not mean that you can't till pursue or accomplish things. What you want to accomplish may be different. How you want to accomplish will be different. How you percieve accomplishment will be different. In a sense, there is no "taking it seriously", that is much too serious. It just is. Accept what is and the illusion is no illusion, it just is. It changes the "whys" in your relation to materialism and dating.

You definitively can accelerate the journey by knowing what limitations there are, finding them in yourself so that you can work on them - and - at the same time create challenges that can/may produce developmental growth deliberately. Keep in mind, changing how the mind makes sense of things is not a decision away, it actually has to "upgrade" or "rewire in order to be able to hold a new way of understanding/making meaning of something. Knowledge is not it.

Personal development and self-actualization is a bit cumbersome in that you can't make anyone get into this game. Either you get into it based on something that happened to you or something that no longer works for you, e.g. via a crisis. The other way is to become curious up to a point where you are ready to start becoming active in your journey. Actual pointing to something particular rarely works, suggestion and casually redirecting conversation into the realm of self-actualization seems like a better idea. We're not all willing to be on thus journey and it is ok not to be, bot everyone will self-actualize in life, on the contrary few will. Do they want to change or is it you wanting them to change? Being a positive influence as much as you can and maybe people around you start seeing the benefits and build up an interest from there. Or they don't and that is ok too. There's controlling this, you can only change yourself.

We can be attached to an idea, e.g. that we need friends in order to be happy, but that is like most any desire, there's always another desire or "thing" that hinder us from becoming "happy". It is possible to change your relationship to your emotions in such a way that you detatch from ideas and then realize that happiness, ourpose, direction and so on has nothing to do with extrinsic things but is 100% intrinsic. Let go of the idea of needing friends and figure out what is going on inside of you, again, without involving extrinsic factors which we usually turn to in order to avoid responsibility, in forms of justification and/or blaming circumstances or people in our surrounding - or - such extrinsic things lacking in that surrounding. The world is in you and only in you, as are the answers. Starting looking in ghe right place AND importantly also looking in the right way without turning it into shame or guilt but always with compassion, understanding and acceptance for the self and the situation you are in. When acceptance is found, responsibility is absolute and with those two there can be no victim. From there it is much easier to pursue change without attachment to the idea of that thing should be a certain way to be "alright". It is already alright, it is the attachment to the idea that things should be in another way that makes us miserable.

@laurel You're welcome, affection theory is very interestind and useful as it affects everyday life. Also the perfect match with mindfulness ?

Anger is there for you to set outward boundaries. Fear is there for you to protect yourself from harm, possibly determine whether to fight or flight. Both are calling out for you to take action. Failing to take action may result in building up anxiety. Anger/aggression can be a coping skill, e.g. you can turn to anger in order to avoid feeling another emotion, e.g. fear, that is when fear is too uncomfortable you may make a conscious or unconscious habit to mask it with anger. Many different emotions can turn into coping with anger.

@Organica If there only was one, and you are that one, then you can't go away (die) and you can't come back (reincarnate) since there was only one. You can't reincarnate into some other, you can't reincarnate into all, you were always all and everything perceivable and unperceivable. What you perceive as you and the reality you observe is only a lens, a filter through which your perception is limited. If you are "it" - and all that is is contained in "it" - then everything is in "you", and how could you possible reincarnate into something that is already inside you?

You can stop self-talk through becoming aware of it. Systematically becoming aware will, just as meditation, reduce the length and frequency of self-talk before we become aware. When things happen in life, self-talk is affected, just as meditation is "better" or "worse" depending on the circumstances in our present life. When becoming aware of self-talk, we can switch to inquiry and try to see patterns in what it is we are procrastinating, so that we can move that thought into the present and take whatever internal or external actions are needed to rid ourselves of the content. This paired with working on calming the mind is quite effective.We can quite quickly find ourselves in a place where the negative self-talk gets quieted down, which gives your mind space to be creative. A somewhat less problematic side-effect is that your mind might switch from negative/costing/problematic self-talk to creative/constructive/exploring self-talk. Tricky stuff when it comes to the ego, you might be disillusioned to thinking that your self-talk, that is negative, is serving your purpose, which is negative. Even when asking if it's working well for you, you might be so disillusioned that you think it is while in fact it's not. Depending on what your purpose is, if it's to be 100% in the NOW, that might be quite frustrating. If our purpose is to function and achieve in the illusion of reality, it can be quite useful. Whatever serves your purpose/works well is right in your world. That's all we can do, become more aware and constantly refine that purpose, which might be reduced down to nothing, just being.

Also this is a good read.

Fiction: "You are already there" Fact: If you are not, then you are not. You are THERE, it is the same world, but it is completely differently percieved. Hence, you are NOT there. Claiming that someone that is not there to "already be there" adds nothing but confusion and a sense of lack of direction as you would be left with the feeling that you do not have to do anything more at all to "be there". No, it is not that easy. You will understand when you have had the insight. There is a good chance that someone is mindfucking you without helpful intentions - or they themselves only believe that they "are already there".

@Arcangelo then it is not the money that will make you happy, you have happiness already. If you thought that $1mill would have made you happy, that is when you would have been unsatisfied when you get there, and $100mill would be what/when you think you would be happy. If you are already happy, $100mill would not hurt to have - - - - - or would it? Worth thinking about.