caspex

Doubting yourself, your process is natural. Just keep trying and trying in new ways, learning from your mistakes, and practicing what works. Don't keep repeating the same thing too many times out of laziness. The only meaningful thing is to not give up, and even when you do, your desires to be better wouldn't let you stay down for too long. For me, it's actually impossible to not pursue spirituality, or general self-growth, I can only take a break. Don't worry about your thinking pattern and all that, just keep pursuing what you want. This resistance in your mind is natural and you'll overcome it as you keep pushing. One day it'll just make sense how to transcend it, but that requires suffering, which will only come from your desire to succeed.

SQAAD, you're pure love. Open up your heart and see how Infinity loves you endlessly. Realize the true nature of reality through your heart, not just your head. That's not enough. Reality loves you so dearly that the only reason it exists is because you want to survive. This whole world, all of infinity is only there for you. It loves you so dearly that it doesn't even have a sense of self, that it's one with you. All of life is of no worry when you understand the indestructible shield that is this reality's love for you. All you have to do is to love it back so dearly that you stop existing as a self just like it has done for you. Dissolve yourself in that love and you'll feel a protection like no other. Open your heart, all of this will make sense. You cannot stop worrying by simply understanding the non-duality of reality through your head. If you only awaken through the head, reality feels like a void and impersonal. That's only half the truth. Awaken through your heart.

You're infinite. What we call delusion is when infinity views itself at a lower resolution/clarity. Escaping Delusion would be simply infinity being infinity at a higher resolution. That's the difference. You are correct that Delusion doesn't exist. This is because Delusion is a blurry line drawn by us humans. For me, the line is drawn at knowing infinity's true nature vs. not. But ofcourse this line is artificial. This doesn't mean all perspectives are at the same level, in terms of resolution.

You cannot know what's truly true and what's false. Those notions are relative. The only thing that can be known to be completely true is infinity/God. In that sense, all understanding of limited forms such as concepts is simply an increase in resolution of the illusion that is that concept. Understanding in context for a limited form is simply illusion at a higher resolution and clarity. The only true understanding is that of Infinity/God, which is simply infinity witnessing itself at a higher and higher resolution.

To open blockages, go to the core/heart/seed of that blockage, quite literally. Keyword is "pure". Example: You feel blockage in your heart, think "Who am I at my purest?" and focus that questions towards your heart. You are trying to find the heart of your heart. Penetrate the blockages like a hot needle falling on a block of butter. Once you feel instinctively you are at that seed, that's it. Meditate on it. That's your true self. Whether this is literally true or not does not matter, what matters is if you feel that way or not. After meditating on it for a while, go even deeper in that seed if you can, and you'll see there's nothing left and what you call the core of your heart has now encompassed everything. To help penetration, you need to soften your heart first. One way is to remember the most meaningful moments of your life, have nostalgia and try to forgive yourself for things your blame yourself. This will only soften your heart, which may itself feel liberating. But remember that goal is to go to that seed. If you cannot transcend the seed and feel your heart encompasses everything, it's enough to simply practice enough to stabilize yourself in that core. If you cry, then you know you are going the right direction. Example 2: For blockages in the solar plexus, focus at the bottom of your diaphram. That's where manipura is. It can be hard at first, so take your time. It's deep in, but you know you have reached it when you realize this is the very core of your body. When you start penetrating it in a similar fashion with your awareness and love, you'll lose your voice, and you'll stop breathing. This is because all these activities are given power by your Manipura. I haven't experimented much with Manipura yet, so I don't know how dangerous it could be. It's exactly the place where I felt anxiety. Example 3: As for the head, you need to work on the traditional "detach from thoughts, personality and ego" and exist as simple awareness. A step beyond into full self realisation would be understanding even this pure witness is illusory and that there is truly no one. What helped me was, in order, "I AM" meditation for a few days then "Neti Neti" Method (which I performed for about 4 -5 hours at night, until I reached my first ever self-realisation at dawn.) Example 4: Gut probably deals with the Swadishthana (Sacral Chakra). I haven't done any work for this chakra so I don't know much. But I'd assume that having a fit body, healthy diet, good self hygiene, acquired good looks(as in you worked for it like having a nice hairstyle, fashion sense and such) and most of all conscious ways of gaining pleasure from life, are indicators of an open sacral chakra. Example 5: I know even less about Vishuddhi (Throat Chakra). All I know is it deals with honesty, integrity and maturity. Once it's free of all blockages and radiating unrestrictingly, you stop self-sabotaging and all procrastination. While unblocking Manipura will get rid of shame and anxiety associated with self-expression, unblocking Vishuddhi enables you to do the expression itself. But creativity doesn't necessarily come from Vishuddhi.

To bring another perspective to the conversation, I want to add that "Bhakti" seems to be essentially energy work. If you do a ritual for a particular deity lasting few hours every day, asking it for healing, help or straight up energy, you do open up your heart center massively. It really depends on the deity. The process is greatly accelerated if you apply teachings of no-self, everything is one, 'there are no distinctions' and such to the ritual. It has helped me easily open up my heart, my solar plexus and even my head. All of it within 40 - 60 days. I am literally a different person after the practice. I also started to have mystical experiences on a regular basis. You also build 'maturity' and 'integrity' automatically. You automatically do 'shadow work' at the same time. This is because you start embodying the qualities of the deity. If, for example, you worship Rama, you embody his qualities of maturity, integrity, humbleness, strength of character, intelligence and other qualities, to the extent you are capable. Rama is literally the ideal man. Let's say you worship Hanumana, you start embodying intense humbleness with physical and internal strength. All of this is to say "Bhakti" is actually an amazing practice that does multiple things at once. And this is leaving out everything about whether these deities actually exist or not or if they physically provide you aid or not, that's a plus if that's actually the case. But it only really works if you truly start believing in the existence of that diety, and that your prayers ARE actually being received by some entity or energy system. 'Bhakti' is way faster than simple meditation, when it comes to embodying higher states of consciousness. Let's say through psychedelics and contemplation you have found a new peak. 'Bhakti' will help your embody that state faster than simple meditation. 'Psychedelics', I think, change the structure of your brain and body to be able to handle high states of energy and consciousness, but when your come off the psychedelic, you are not able to generate that much energy on your own, hence the HUGE gap between the baselines and the peak of a psychedelic user. Bhakti is asking a higher entity to give you it's energy, and it can give you a LOT. But it only gives as much as you can handle. If you have restructured your brain and body to be able to handle high states of energy and consciousness, it's almost guaranteed that the deity will give you so much you'll reach those peak states again, without the psychedelics. But this is only if you are really able to connect to the deity after a few months of practice. It really depends on the deity. It's important to keep in mind, all deities have their own rules you need to follow when you do their upasana. Failure to follow which can have repercussions on your life. The part about psychedelics and bhakti complementing is just my speculation though. I would actually love to see someone who has changes his very structure through psychedelics try genuine bhakti practice. I can't access psychedelics yet, otherwise I'd try this myself.

"How do I know anything?" Truly knowing something means you have become it. Existence is knowing. Let's say you 'know' there is an apple in the next room. But that's not knowledge, that is assumption. Therefore you cannot truly be sure or know it. Let's say the apple is in front of you. You say "The apple is in front of me." do you know that? No! That's an assumption as well. You assume that that's an apple, you assume there's a you, you assume each of the concepts you used in that sentence and various other implicit assumptions. What we call 'knowledge' is a bunch of assumptions, not knowledge. True knowledge means there's no assumption going on. Which is truth. This question arises when one suspects what they know is not really knowing but assumption! True knowing means the existence of experience beyond assumptions. You don't know anything! Because 'knowing' isn't based on truth, it just means 'an assumption I am sure of'. You don't know anything because you can't know anything but only become truth. "Understanding" is simply finding truth. In other words, understanding is God expanding itself.

I wouldn't call it absolute bliss but I am able to generate energizing pleasure mixed with peace and stability at will. It seems the key is to let go of your attachment to the body completely, for the experience of unconditional pleasure. And letting go of your mind, ceasing to control it and identify with it, so completely. This gives rise to joy and happiness. Combined it feels really good and you can generate it in any condition. It's not dependent on your mood. The only reason that state isn't constant for me is because I haven't practiced it enough. The idea behind letting go is very simple and basic but you have to do it at such a degree where you almost have to grab onto your body through your will to stay in it.

When I meditate, or when I contemplate questions related to reality, or feel higher in consciousness, I feel this intense pleasure throughout the body. I call it pleasure not bliss because though it feels good it is quite intense, and I'd rather stop feeling it after a few minutes. I don't know what this is. The more I disindentify with this pleasure, the more intense it gets. It's in every part of my body. The deeper I get with my awareness, the more intense it gets, and after a while it's so intense I can't focus on the penetration into reality. It gets too distracting. Imagine your whole body was vibrating, inside and outside, with the middle of your forehead warm and tensely relaxed. It feels good but it's too distracting. Infact, when I focus on the beingness of reality, it reaches another level, it jumps from the level of pleasure to contentment, and the contentment is so intense I can't observe straight. I get distracted. I want to get further, how do I overcome this? Do you know of any references that talk about my experience? I NEED to get past this stage, I have been stuck here for months.

I looked it up. It seems I am experiencing Piti without the Sukha. I'll try climbing the Jhanas for now.

If you like to do it, you shouldn't limit yourself. Just remember there is a fine line between not limiting yourself and forcing yourself to achieve.

So ya'll gonna ignore the fact that Leo admitted he has strangled coyotes?

This is exactly how I'd have replied back then if someone wrote the same reply to me. But I will take you on your word. Even then, the spiritual arrogance you mentioned in your op isn't that isolated from what I am talking about. Mine certainly stemmed from what I have described, and dissolved massively when I got rid of the overall 'arrogance' in my nature.

I had the same problem until a few months ago. This was the case for basically my whole life since I had developed some sort of superiority complex from my academic achievements, which only got stronger when I got into spirituality. I always had a suspicion of my 'narcissism' but it was never as bad as what was said about it online. So I thought to myself, "Hey I just like to be very honest, am comfortable with saying no, and possess a strong personality. If that comes off as narcissism then the others are mistaken.". Turns out, behind this surface level idea of who I thought I was, I was much more manipulative, to the point that I didn't realize it myself. See, it's very easy to come up with a defense for anything, I am speaking any opinion, viewpoint, or lie. Having a strong defense doesn't mean it's true, but to me at the time, it was "If I can defend it, it must have some truth to it!" "If I can convince the other that they were wrong, I was true!". I used this deception to often misdirect the blame away from me. This worked because if you know how to defend something, unless the other is really great at dissecting arguments / is great at deconstructing, they can't do shit to you. Not to mention that most others who would call you selfish, don't have great articulation, so even if they are speaking truth, you can easily fuck them over by confusing them of their own intended meaning. Or using some cultural pattern/rule/moral to make them admit they were 'wrong'. When I read about others describing their problems, specially regarding this topic, even if I had the problem directly, I would think while reading, "That can never be me.". Notice, are you doing that right now? I said to myself I was one way but was actually another. Every person has a pure side and an impure one. What I did was I looked at an idea of the pure side, thought that was all of me, but continued to be the impure devil I was. My friends found me to be selfish, narcissistic even. But I chalked it all up to "I am just bold." I legit couldn't bring myself to help my friends if they could do it themselves. "Why is this guy so lazy? Get a grip!". This also manifested in me as me giving unwarranted advice. Even after I fixed that, I was still very very selfish, and overrated myself. In fact, I believed that I had to respond to everything. I couldn't just accept someone telling me a fault of mine. You know realizations about "I am so selfish and full of shit" were almost always just me trying to 'achieve' this realization like others in this work. It was almost never genuine, and only showed me a little part of me that was selfish, not affecting my overall facade. The most fascinating part is that to me, I didn't realize ANYTHING. I felt as if I was the most normal, with no problems. It's not like I had the problems in my experience, I was just ignoring them. No, I was blind to the problems and processes at work. This reply makes me sound like a selfish monster but this was only one of the major parts of me at the time. I also had good parts, selfless parts that all formed the purer side of me. I thought THAT was really me, but I acted otherwise. Judging by your post and reply on this thread alone, you feel like the past version of me lol. I hope my reply helps you in some way.

I'd say trying to actually find a guru is a big part of the 'need'. Imo this tantric stuff seems the most exhilarating but dangerous.

Here's the hole, the insight here doesn't eliminate all regret. The insight here is about owning up to who you were and are. Regret is the resistance to change your image and owning up. But, regret is also resistance to adapt to new circumstance. It could have nothing to do with you or your choices. It could be that life was going good, and you get news that your son passed away in an accident. You would still feel regret and anguish. "Why did it have to happen?", "why did it happen to me?","I wish it had never happened" It's the same emotion, just not directed at you. This regret will not go away if you own up to who you are/were. It will go away when you own up to what life really is. See, this kind of regret happens when you have a certain image of what your life is like. So the regret here is the resistance to change you image of what your life is. It's the same thing as before, just that it's about changing an image that you projected onto 'life' rather than 'yourself'.

Yup, it's an excuse to bypass the thought-labour required to deal with wrong choices. Even though "I should have chosen the right action." sounds like taking responsibility, you are shying away from who you are/were. See the difference between saying, "I should have saved her." vs. "I didn't save her, I wish now that I had.". In the second one, you own up to who you are, in the first one, you assume you'd 'usually' save her but for 'some reason' you didn't. Owning up to who you are also nullifies regret to a big degree.

Well, if we are speaking at the level of God then there is most definitely no reason for pain other than that it is perfection. Why is it perfection? See, "why" assumes that there is something else, a cause to the effect. When we ask why, we say "Why [Effect]" with the answer being "[Cause]". But what if something is it's own cause? Then the answer to it's 'why' would be itself. So, Why is pain perfection? Because pain is perfection. This 'perfection' or 'God' or 'Being' is the bedrock of all questioning related to causation. So to answer your question of "why does God design pain the way he has" the answer to it is "Because God designed pain the way he has". Pretty much, there's no meaning behind it. We humans want to find meaning/cause in everything, which is the proper thing to do for survival. But this right here, is meaningless. Which infringes on our survival, so meaninglessness seems threatening, impractical, useless, unfulfilling, irrational, and "not a real answer". In reality meaninglessness/causelessness is perfection. The only way to grasp this 'causelessness' of 'why God designed the world the way it has" is to simply grasp it. Although, to be able to simply grasp it, you need to free yourself of delusions and stuff which requires work and contemplation. All the other reasons, imho, such as: Pain is there for growth. Pain is there so we burn all resistance, ultimately moving towards God and becoming one with it. Pain is there because before we incarnated, we chose this life to grow in specific aspects. Pain is there because we did bad things in past life. Pain is there because you are weak. Pain is there because you do not understand what it is. Pain is there because you resist it - are all relative reasons, that may be true, but are not their own cause. I'd say the purest answer would the one I provided, but it's definitely the least practical.

I appreciate your post because this is likely on many women's mind. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. The solution is to not be attached to the life that good looks bring you. You idealize the life where you are hot, therefore see more value in that, rather than your own life. To stop idealizing, understand that you'll still suffer the same amount as you do now, being hot will not reduce your suffering. This is because suffering depends on how you process life and being hot will not change that for you. You'll suffer different things, but it'll still be the same amount. In your current life, if you suddenly become hot, many of your issues will be solved, until new ones emerge depending on your new looks; and trust me it'll be just as bad as it is now, only in a different way. Moreover, what you desire is not to be hot, but to not suffer the suffering that comes with not being hot, which you can solve in this life, you do not have to magically become hot to solve that problem. The answer is simple, the work, not so much.

If your habits are coming back that means you are re-identifying with your old identities. Make sure you say NO to these identities, To say No you need internal strength and power of will in your gut. What more you need is an unconditional feeling of safety in your heart. These two things will give you the energy and protection you need to combat relapse. These are very literal sensations in your gut and heart respectively. You can go about the logical route trying to contemplate your problem, but it will eventually lead you back here. Problem is of inner strength, not of understanding. These two things develop when you integrate and master spiral dynamics stage Blue. Although by mastering Stage Blue, these only 'develop', to reach their peak form, I don't know yet.

You want some humor? Here ya go: @Leo Gura

It's not just trauma healing let's be honest here. Most people are traumatized by events in their individual lives, so healing those would already put you above most people, but you know what? That still leaves shit thrown on you by society itself, that we consider a normal part of being human because we don't know any better. That inner strength in your gut and in your heart, and that clarity in your head, the typical society robs you of all that and promotes actions that weaken these. Humans can be immensely strong internally, yet they are fragmented by trauma, and even when not, still not as strong as they could be. You see in stories characters with unbelievable integrity and will power... THAT'S a natural human being. THAT'S really normal. That is so rare because we do so many things in our day to day lives that weaken our hearts. I'll tell you a few insights I have gained from personal practice and exploration. The power of your gut is that it eliminates procrastination, gives you energy to keep your word, and be able to carry out anything you are capable of. The gut is the seat of willpower. When properly cleared of all blockages, when properly settled into, you are not in your own way anymore. Which is what is normal for a human being. And it's sad that it isn't for most of us. When this power is there, you want to LIVE, you want to EXIST to the fullest extent of what it means to exist. When someone interacts with you, they realize you are not an NPC, you fucking exist. The power of your heart is that it eliminates all fear, gives you a sense of home within yourself, a sense of utter safety that is unrivaled by anything external. It gives you the courage to carry out the tasks that you need to. While the gut is there for actual action and consistency, the heart is there for trust and assurance to eliminate all doubt and fear from your task. It gives a certain sense of sweetness amidst all this power. If everyone and thing in the world is against you, your heart is a home you can always go to. If there is no place for you to go in the whole world, this is the place you can go to. This is the ultimate thing you can rely onto for validation and safety. The power of the heart is fucking crazy. When you actually clear this place out and live from it, you become for other people what your heart is for you. In the words of Rengoku from the anime series Demon Slayer, THIS is setting your heart ablaze. You feel certain about your actions. You have trust and faith in yourself, simply because of this power you feel in your chest. The power of the mind is that it eliminates all fog from your perception. Meaning your mind is clear and your focus is absolute. Your mind is what discerns what action it needs to perform. Your habits, patterns and ego doesn't interfere anymore with your decisions and perception. There is a natural state of no-self. You feel whole and empty in your head, you don't feel fake. Your head feels like a clear pond of water or a polished mirror with no specs on it. The Gut makes you unstoppable, the heart makes you immovable, the mind gives you direction. The Gut is raw power, the heart is a solid rock, the mind is clear water. The Gut is fire, the heart is a humble mountain, the mind is a coolant for them both. All of these work in tandem to create a human being PERFECT for survival both for his/her physical body, emotional needs and mental needs. I am serious. This is the default. Nature made us this way. Because we exist to survive on a structural level. Why would humans only be good enough to survive on a physiological level when they have other structures such as their emotions and mind in place? Wouldn't humans be built for the survival of those as well? We have the capability, it's just so fucked over by the blind society. Look, I am not speaking out of my ass here or some book. I have learned this from my own direct experiences. It's a state which is very very powerful. It's a whole experience, not just an imagination or a feeling in your head. This is how one should be naturally! This is where spirituality REALLY begins. Up until this point you are just working to become natural. Spirituality is going beyond survival, what's natural for a human being. It's going beyond human.

here's one of my favorite delusions