Mulky

I had a funny time when I was a kid. It hit me one day that I referred to other people as you but throughout their day they thought of themselves as me. Then I would appear in their day and say how you doing etc. I thought it would be funny to go up to people and say "hi me" because that would be referring to them as what they think of themselves as, and would make sense. Not really important but still a funny memory this brought back. i was laughing and being silly about it all day and my family thought I was silly.

How is that even possible, everything is unearned, nobody ever earned anything or didn't earn anything. You're either conscious or you're not, you didn't cause it to happen.

Of course, if you are not in a state where you cannot do anything, you might as well do nothing with your body and engage in self inquiry with your mind. If you are in a state where you cannot do anything, then just don't do anything. Either way, you might as well sit perfectly still.

Watch Guardians of the Galaxy 2 to find out.

I had that happen for a while to. not sure if I just got used to it or if it stopped

Nothing is 2 dimensional, you can only think about 2 dimensionality, if something was 2 dimensional, it would have no thickness whatsoever and wouldn't exist. Even the images in a magazine aren't 2 dimensional, they have to have some thickness to be visible at all.

I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I can't actually do anything. I can sit there and do nothing and sometimes it's good but usually I just fall asleep after a while, If i try to do self inquiry or anything like that my brain goes blank and I can't do anything again but yet it once again just leads to me falling asleep. After a lot of do nothing meditation it's like I can't convince myself to actually do something.

Stairway To Heaven-Led Zeppelin(disect the lyrics to this it's the best example I can think of) Rocket-Smashing pumpkins(almost as good as Stairway) Logical Song-supertramp Kodachrome-Paul Simon Return To Innocence-Enigma Bed of Roses-Screaming trees The Passenger-Iggy Pop Aerials-System of a Down From a Distance-Bette Midler I lived on the moon-Kwoon(especially with the video) Then these songs are sort of related to enlightenment in some way in my mind What a Feeling-Irene Cara Moody blues-Remember Me My Friend, Tuesday afternoon Imagine-John Lennon(enlightened society) Bohemian Rhapsody-Queen(seems like he is talking about kundalini at one part) Ruby Tuesday-Rolling Stones Do You Know?-Diana Ross Your Eyes-Peter Gabriel No More I love you's-Annie Lennox

I built one in my garage a couple years ago and used it for a while and it was pretty cool, but I found that maintaining the tank became the main concern in my life. But ya it is super effective, you could throw someone in there and tell them nothing about meditation, and they will automatically meditate. The issue is that the people who really need to go in a float tank are usually the ones who will be terrified of going in there. But ya, probably everyone on here should at least try it. Because it is very easy in there to know yourself just existing as nothing, cause that is essentially what your experience will be after a while in a float tank, I'm surpised people haven't talked more about tanks on here to be honest. Also, for all you psychedelic fans out there, supposedly these things work amazingly well in tandem with psychedelics.

Thanks Leo

I would like some input on this. I recently got a new job where I spend most of my time sitting alone in an empty room. I'm sure I will not have to explain why I chose to do such a job. It is a lot easier to spend 8 hours sitting calmly doing nothing when you know you can't run off and do whatever you want, when it is sort of your job. So aside from when someone comes in the room, I spend my time going into present moment silent existence. My only real obstacle with this particular situation as there are multiple mirrors in the room, as well as a camera on me, and the window I am staring out becomes reflexive at night. So as I gaze out I find it hard to let my awarenss be fully open when I'm trying to avoid the mirrors etc. At the same time, I usually try to not look in mirrors as it makes me feel more like a body than when I don't look in mirrors. Has anyone been in similar situations and have any advice on how to proceed? thanks

What technique did you use?

It's hard to do anything if you don't focus on it completely. If you divide your efforts between this and a career it's going to be hard. I choose jobs that don't pay much but allow me to meditate for most of the time I am at work. If you can let go of money and life and everything competely then it seems obvious that is the best choice. Almost all of the people we know of that really became enlightened didn't hedge their bets at all, most of them gave up completely everything. Some of the old masters like Ramana would say you shouldn't give up your worldly life, but they also didn't live in such a mentally complicated landscape dominated by technological distractions. Ramana himself gave up literally everything including his own life.

Thanks for all the advice from Leo and everyone else, don't have much else to say about it at the moment, but I do appreciate it.

So today while going into home depot to buy some stuff to work on my house, I realized, I have learned so many things in my life, and they are all pointless, and a distraction. I don't mean learning about yourself or life, I mean learning skills to navigate a lifestyle I have come to feel maybe I shouldn't even be living. Let me explain. When I was about 7, I started to notice i had activities planned, things to do tomorrow, etc. Looking back I now realize this was the first time I felt out of the moment, and I knew something was wrong. My young mind explored itself quickly for escape, and almost immediately the solution popped into my mind. I pictured myself sitting cross legged in the wilderness, having the sense I would be there forever and not move at all. I then actually considered it, but for some reason decided not to. I forgot about that entire experience until I was 30, and only then did I find out about enlightenment and meditation. After learning some that memory came back, and considered it again, but was always tied down by something. Now I am 38 and although I have had long periods of time in states of deep peace, suffering and ego comes back often, in fact in some way the ego is almost always there, besides small little pockets. Now as my job becomes more hectic and I find myself compromising my path to make a living, I wonder, did I miss my calling. was I supposed to leave and do that when I was a kid. I feel like besides spiritual practice almost everything in my life has been pointless and not rewarding at all, in fact harmful to me and other people. Was my whole life just wasted time up until this point? I know only now matters but still I must admit this bothers me a bit, and anyones advice or guidance or comfort even on this would be appreciated.

I've lived a long time with my spirit not compressed. usually when I had nothing to worry about, or when I let go completely, or when i let go even of basically my own life. Sometimes my family or the situation in my life will call to my attention again, and I will attempt to maintain or do things, and at this time my spirit will compress again. Others around me will actually fight for me to come back to this place, this sense of responsibility, but it will always bring about an inner sense of wrongness, an intuition that letting go was right and being a responsible controlling agent is wrong. During this compressed state there is a sense that no matter how well I arrange things for myself, I am making a mistake and I will never experience the true happiness of the uncompressed state. Still, sometimes a sense of fear will drive me back into this state, and it can be very hard to get out of again. I am getting tired of doing the work to open my spirit only to have it tighten up again. there is a sense all will work out good if i can keep my spirit open, i even feel more productive and creative, but still this sense of control and organization and planning will come in and suffocate me again. I have had it with this cycle. Even when i get inspired to do something, once i start like a project or something it starts to feel suffocating. I want to feel open, free, safe, I've felt this way before but this adult sense of responsibility has crushed it and I just don't believe that's the way it is meant to be simply because it feels so incredibly wrong. I have spent nearly a year in a state of almost no identity and deep peace and feeling great beauty in life, and popped out of it when suddenly thinking about something stupid like taxes. Now I get that we are supposed to function here on earth, but if I have to choose between deep peace and feeling greyish but doing what I'm supposed to do, peace seems alot better. I just don't have any idea how to reconcile the 2. How do I function in this society while maintaining inner peace, how do I be taken care of without taking care of myself. IF i have to take care of myself it seems I am not truly letting go, before you judge this look at yourself and see if this is also true. I don't just want words here, I want a real answer, a real solution, something that can actually be done. You see, during the uncompressed state, I will get alot of advice that sounds very sound, and on most levels is good. but if i actually put any of it into practice, theres a deep inner sense of wrongness. the very clear obvious lessons of life such as being responsible, thinking about money alot, looking to the future, working for your best interest, keeping yourself safe,are all things that shatter this peace for me, they bring back an inner tightness. I want advice but I need it from someone who absolutely knows what I'm talking about, thanks.

Can't figure out how to delete a thread, this was negative and not helpful to anyone.

Think about it, if i let go, and my mind goes quiet, and I see the truth. it's alot like how people describe it, how theirs like just existence and conciousness but not individual beings or doers or a self or anything like that. But when someone else says this to you, it doesn't make sense, during the time you are entertaining what they are saying you won't be able to understand. Because you have to imagine that they are the seat of awareness or at least A awareness. So when you could just be nothing and things could be as they are, now all the sudden you're trying to imagine how this other guy is an eyeball of awarenss and so are you and there are a whole bunch and now it just doesnt' make any sense any more. I mean, I can't really see another awareness, can I? I can only think of one, but what to do when you're really convinced there are other centeres of awareness out there, during the time you are considering these other centers of awareness it seems you can't go into the pure state of just being. Like if i said to you, I am pure awareness, nothing and everything, the center of existence, That's not really true for you is it, I'm just something in your show, and also if you believe that we all have our "show" and the other people are pretend things in it, that doesn't really jive to well either. So you're only option is to let go, don't think, be, yadda yadda, and you can see how things are but when you think about the very seemingly reasonable idea that actually all the other beings are exactly the same way, suddenly by thinking ssomething that is probably true, you can't connect with the experienced truth. So can someone explain to me how to reconcile this?

I got enlightened by being in the now..... I did it last week...... wait what...

Where can I look online to purchase some books About Ramana Maharshi?

I like this but a couple questions. I get that you can't be perceived, but what do you mean by you can't perceive anything, in the example you gave I get that you can't percieve anything, but what about us who can see etc. Also as awareness can I die, i mean if the body dies that i dont even know about in the story, would I die or what, I mean thats the big question.

At work I am tasked with walking around outside for 8 hours straight and doing nothing else, I can talk to people, or whatever, as long as I'm walking around and aware of my surroundings I'm doing my job right, so I just do that all day, and have been for about 3 years. It's really good, just get present and aware of surroundings and feeling as you walk. You might feel you need headphones or something right now, but I wouldn't recommend it. You want to hear birds wind cars and everything, all real life sounds not coming in a strange frequency, listening to music etc is fine but during this time I wouldn't do it. Get deep in your body as you go, work deep into your feelings, and then into your spirit, and be sort of openly taking everything in, sort of like people do sometimes on vacation. Not sure about the monkey mind other than to say, look for the feeling happening during the monkey mind and watch it. Like I used to notice what would happen if i became completely passive and didn't partake in thinking with words but still saw them happen, what I noticed is that when you are silent at first and then look and wait for a feeling, you will see some sort of feeling appear, this feeling will be the feeling that pops up to tell you to talk again(interally) Mine was usually in my head, like literally, a physicall feeling in my head. You just then watch that passively, eventually you become comfortable with it and it calms, congratulations, you can exist without thinking. You can actually do this for anything, but I would recommend finding the core feeling that stimulates verbal thinking whenever you are silent and abide in that feeling and feel ok with it, it will feel sort of restless or scared at first I'm sure, just burn it out. You'll still think with words, but it won't be nearly as bad. I would sometimes try to do purposeful things, mantras, staring at a certain spot while I walked, standing motionless no matter who was around or how weird i looked, staring down at an angle, making sure I was being properly slow or having a certain posture. But now I just move around natural and let my body do pretty much what it wants, just keep it sort of loose and don't think about it to much. If you're gonna be yourself that means your body is going to do whatever it wants. Oh ya I forgot the key of it all, the most important thing and the 1 thing people aren't talking about much here, gigantic deeply self exploring and opening breaths, all the time. Just start down the path of it, deepen your breath, force open things within with your breath, look so deeply within using your breath, especially while you walk, like open up your emotinal field completely, go as deep as you can. Not everyone will agree with this, but violently if necessary blast your inner self open completely with your massive breath, and if it's not massive yet keep growing it. You can literally do this whole thing with just your breath, and if your doing a good job on everything else but haven't done much with the breath, well then the sky is the limit for you once you start using the breath.

The brain is in consciousness, all the thoughts are in conciousness, including all the thoughts about the brain and conciousness and their relation.

I'm busy so I'm not going to read anything in your entire post or any of the other posters except for your title and respond. Almost every addiction will yield less pleasure and more pain over time, all of them in fact, even ones that seem reasonable like sex or junk food. Meditation is the only thing you can be addicted to that will yield more pleasure and less pain over time. this also refers to any kind of mindfulness, present moment awareness, or in any way becoming more established in a natural meditative state reguardless of what you are doing at the time.

If you're pretty new, and especially if you're still knee deep in logic, this might help. If your not in logic be careful overdoing this as you can rapidly lower your state of conciousness and become completely blinded to that fact for who knows how long(It might actually be happening to me right now). I'm going to ask you to use just a bit of logic for a specific purpose for a small amount of time and then let it go. People are currently obsessed with logic, practically worship it, but they don't do it any justice, because they ignore it's ability to completely destroy any sense of self, they have a blind spot to all logic that proves free will doesn't exist, everything is connected, there is no individual self, when clearly these things are true. Because their logic is mostly to maintain the ego, they conveniently abandon it when someone uses it to destroy the ego or since of individuality. From be as you are, a book from the teaches of Ramana Maharshi, who is the biggest teacher of self inquiry I know about. "It will be remembered that in the chapter on Self awareness and Self ignorance, Sri Ramana maintained that Self-realization could be brought about merely by giving up the idea that there is an individual self which functions through the body and the mind" As long as you apply some logic to this, and don't give yourself self preserving logic blind spots(aka doing everything you can to believe in free will even though if you look at it at all you'll find it doesn't make any sense and is in fact impossible). Bring everything you learned in school, such as cause and effect, if you're really honest with yourself you'll find the idea of an individual self makes absolutely no sense, it's all just 1 infinite thing. Your best definition of a self you could make would be like a system contained within "your body", but clearly we can see that system is effected by, effecting, and connected with everything else so absolutely that if you were to define yourself as a system that system would have to be all of existence.