vizual

It is not so much that I have been deliberately been eating healthier since I have gone on the path. It's more that I see more easily though the illusion of the rush that sugary/fatty/salty foods give me. The taste of food itself has become more important than the illusive effects they give my body, so there are less cravings for junkfood and more inclination towards more wholesome foods. I really taste the nutritional emptiness in junkfood more now than I used to. Just eating 'clean' foods won't really make you more spiritual, that's just an imagination of the ego. I think by becoming more spiritual you have less cravings toward empty calories which just give you a bodily rush and effect.

You have an ego which gives itself an image and persona in which it feels safe and unthreatened. As long as this image is uphold your ego thinks it won't be threatened and it can continue to exist. When this image gets questioned by certain events or people, your ego will feel stress. Since its own existence is on the line. This could even be something stupid as someone makes a joke about your hair. Since your ego might define itself where how his hair looks is of great importance. Someone making a comment about your hair might be just as stressful as someone attacking you with a knife. In both instances the ego's continuity is being attacked. When the image gets validated by events the ego will feel great. The validation reassures the ego's existence and this makes it feel all cosy and safe.

Let's say you wake up and the only thing that you can perceive are your thoughts, all your sense have somehow disappeared. Your thoughts will probably freak out and wondering what's going on, you would probably still feel you are "you". There is still something perceiving your thoughts. On the other hand, you have also experienced where you did not have any thoughts at all, your mind was entirely blank and only your sensual perceptions were present. In both cases you felt "you" were present. Your thoughts are totally different now than they were as when you were a child, from within the illusion you could say that "childlike-you" is a totally different person than you are now. Yet, something was exactly the same then as it is now, but this thing can not be found anywhere inside the illusion. This thing has been exactly the same in the experience you call life. Maybe you could meditate on that, what is it that has been constant every moment in my life? It is subtle of course, but it's there(or not, up to you to find out ;)). Every single one of your senses can be deceived, awareness can not be deceived.

Anything by Johann Sebastian Bach. His music is God incarnated in musical notes, doesn't get much more inspired than that(imo)

Something you can do is to first get clear what you want to get out of Self Help. Why have you joined this forum? What sparked your interest? From there you should decide for yourself if Self Help material resonates with you and your goals. Some of it won't and some of it probably will, it is up to you what you find valuable. There are not a whole lot of people on this planet that are fully happy with their lives, even though they might pretend that they are from the outside. Self Help might show you the way to get more out of life, or not, it's up to you.

As long as you believe in your ego you believe in free will, it is the concept the ego lives by. The funny thing is, 'you' will do what you will do regardless. The 'voice' just claims certain things as 'decisions' it made, but it had no part in arriving at that decision at all. As long as you identify with your ego, you will identify with the decisions it is claiming that it made. Now if you say, yes but I feel my ego is real therefor I have free will. In a way you are right, within the illusion of ego you have free will. In the eyes of Truth, there is no one who can have free will since no one exists.

If you are not willing to find something you are passionate about you are only going to find tips to 'trick' the ego into doing things it does not want to do. You are not going to find a fundamental solution which will end all your struggles in to reaching whatever you want to reach. For example; make a schedule of things that have to be done for a certain time and if you do these things you reward yourself with something. These tricks will only help for a certain period of time so be creative to keep switching it up.

Acceptance is not something you DO, it is simply letting go of resistance, so acceptance is something you stop doing rather than doing. When you let yourself be pushed over, which is something you clearly you do not desire, you are actually in resistance, not acceptance. You are resisting yourself in stead of accepting others.

Become passionate and excited by the things you want to do. No more discipline needed. You only need discipline for things you don't really want to do. And when you get so much momentum from the excitement in your life, the small, pesky things like paying bills, house cleaning, doing groceries etc. become a breeze. When you are not excited by things you have to do all day, pure discipline is only going to get you so far. You will not reach greatness

Enlightenment is not a thing. Enlightenment is a name for something that can't be named

That is the trap of desiring something too much, the thing becomes an unattainable mythical being. But on the other hand, you the ego has to focus on the dismantlement of the ego to reach enlightenment, the initial desire has to be there. When you have made progress then you can make the last steps, which is usually the attachments to looking for enlightenment itself. You can't avoid labeling it, because then no one would look for it. It does not matter since the ego is in a world of labels anyway. So even if you reject the word 'enlightenment'. The ego would attach itself to something else.

If you have an inspired goal there are no "dirty jobs" you hate doing. If you feel you going after your goals is a drag you should ask yourself the question first if your goal is worth going after. If you honestly think it is you should become more mindful about what it is in you that is judging certain activiteit as dirty/boring/a chore/whatever. If you have an inspired goal the only thing holding you back is your ego which wants to lay on the couch and watch netflix with a bag of cheetos. That ego is there in the moment when you have to do the "chore". When you can become aware of that ego it can disappear since it is not real, it is just something you are creating and distracting you from the thing you really want to create. The more you can let go of the ego(fear-based thought), the less "pushing" you have to do to create the things you want to create.

-Senna -Searching For Sugar Man -Exit Through The Gift Shop

Well there is no you, only the illusion of you. Everything is and everyone is God and everything goes according to His(and thus your) plan. Everyone is 100% God, God does not discriminate. The 'you' you speak of is simply God playing he isn't you, God is such a great actor that most people don't even realize they are Him. The limitations you speak of are absurd. It is His design, if he gave (the false) you all the power he would break the duality and the dream would be over. When you align with His plan you can do superhuman things and there are no limitations. When you go around running amok with your ego you will hit your head against the limitations you have set, because deep down you will know you are not following God's plan.

Whatever you do, always respect your parents, dude But never listen to them for life advice. Most(almost all) parents have an ego when it comes to their children whether they are aware of it or not. Apart from the fact that most grownups are just as clueless about life as teenagers are, maybe even more so.

Expectation is simply a rigid form of attachment. When you look at an enlightened person they obviously still engage in certain attachments or else they could not be present in duality. But what they don't do is confuse their attachments for truth. What most people do is that they depend their own happiness on the outcome of their expectations, they will 'die' every time an expectation does not come to fruition. They become their own expectation and of course this will lead to pain, a lot of pain. A more healthy way is to engage in your attachments from a place of love. You can still do the things you want to do but your happiness(and your life) will not depend on the outcome whatever that attachment may bring.

High/Low Consciousness is a distinction by the ego. Just because you are familiar with concepts such as "consciousness", "truth" and "enlightenment" does not make you a higher being than beings who are not. Every entity is on its own path to truth and every single one of them takes a different route and approach. One approach is not superior to the other. You are holding yourself back by focussing on this distinction. It is your own ego who is craving separation and identification with other people. At our core, every human being is truth, the shape in which that being shows itself is the illusion. If you want to be of "high consciousness" you should focus on that.

Work + meditation = ca$h + awareness You don't need to do Zazen to be present, meditate while working. Call your work "Working Meditation", who knows, you one day might become a best selling author selling cookie cutter spirituality books telling yoga moms they can become enlightened by working and meditating at the same time. Look at it as an opportunity in stead of an obstacle.

You generally don't do goals when you are enlightened, but you can still do and enjoy things. And because you are fully present and aware, an enlightened man can easily become a master in anything he takes a liking for. There are no more BS ego chatter which is holding you back in doing the things you like to do. Even if you are a master in, like say pottery or knitting, I would say that is a successful man. Mastery in any field is always rewarded by society's standards. True mastery is scarce, in any field.

Oh yes, I occasionally indulge myself with trivial things such as pop culture and news. It keeps me somewhat in touch with the occupations and interests of the common man. Call it a curiosity, not so much a need or genuine interest.

As Enlightenment

American Psycho by Brett Easton Ellis This reminds me; I still have to return some video tapes

Conceptualizing about Truth can help you to motivate your illusory self to keep on looking for it. But eventually you have to see/feel/experience it, not just understand it logically. You can't say Truth is nothing, because for there to be nothing there has to be something. Truth is both nothing and something. I also don't agree that an enlightened person is omnipotent. Yes God is omnipotent and enlightenment is the deep realization that they are God themselves--as is everyone and everything. But to be in this dualistic mirage their persona has to play by the rules of duality. A single player in this Universe can't change the grand scheme of God by playing God himself, because that would destroy the game.

(imo) Caffeine is for stage orange(Graves model is popular here) and below people who think they need to force themselves to do things. Raising your consciousness is a more effective and healthy way to gain more energy in your life. Caffeine can give you a good energy upkick, but there is also always a low.

What if I told you that your highest self wants to develop itself? That by fully accepting that true self you develop yourself? If our species needed to force itself to develop we would have gone extinct a long time ago. The things which keep you from developing are self-imposed barriers to the true self, it is not a lack of ability to force things into motion. Motion is always there and always happening, you just need to let it go, accept it.