Toby

Reminds me of this one (told by J. Krishnamurti): “There are three monks, who had been sitting in deep meditation for many years amidst the Himalayan snow peaks, never speaking a word, in utter silence. One morning, one of the three suddenly speaks up and says, ‘What a lovely morning this is.’ And he falls silent again. Five years of silence pass, when all at once the second monk speaks up and says, ‘But we could do with some rain.’ There is silence among them for another five years, when suddenly the third monk says, ‘Why can’t you two stop chattering?”

I only know of one silent retreat that it exact time that is is germany - in tradition of Osho/Papaji/Gangaji. English with german translations. But I guess that might not suit you..

Ok, I add a few points: Spiral Dynamics: it helps you to see where you are at, where other people/groups are at and where your country/culture is at. It might a lot more difficult to emerge into and move through orange/green in your culture than it is in most parts of Europe/US. That in itself can cause anxiety imo. You already meditate. Add some exercise of Yoga/Tai Chi/Qi Gong - for example something like the "5 tibetan rites" don't take much time and are very good You could also try EFT or just do tapping the EFT-points. takes 1-2 minutes. can calm you to some extent. If you are into stuff like that you can read about Kinesiology, which also has different exercises that can help most imporant thing is to accept the reactions in your body. You can anxious and be ok with it. Focus more on feeling connected than what you say or even if you don't say anything. Don't force making contact or being social, don't avoid and suppress it either. If you are interested you could check out Peter Levine's book "in an unspoken voice" and/or his audio-book "healing trauma" - just so you know different trauma responses and don't take it that seriously. It also gives you some exercises. It is more bottom-up-approach. top-down approaches that could be helpful are the book by David Burns or Byron Katie's "The Work" Focus on yourself and your long term happiness/goals. Most people from school/university you will never see again at age 30, if you don't stay in the same city (or if it's not embedded in your culture to be very loyal people you grow up with or even your family) That's about it what came to my mind. Don't take my or others advise too seriously. See what resonates and what suits/fits you and your situation.

How to be ultra spiritual Non-Duality Dating

I guess I didn't understand correctly what Wilber was saying. A video that made the difference/relationship between stages and states more clear to me: Ken Wilber youtube-video

He was asking about deep sleep/dreamless sleep, I guess? Edit: sorry didn't see your post. Cool that you experienced it.

A more detailed but straightforward description of the higher levels: https://integrallife.com/integral-post/stages-meditation

There are books/teachers that use Dreams/Lucid Dreaming/Dream Work in the context of Enlightenment. Most often these topics are used by people who imo are mainly concerned with what Shinzen Young would call the "power realms", which can sidetrack you. Authors/teachers that have written books on the topic which I guess are genuine are Tenzin Wangyal, Namakhai Norbu (both tibetan tradition), Llewely Vaughan Lee (sufi tradition), Allan Wallace.

In the analogy, you can take Incremental path: go from red to orange to yellow to green to blue to indigo to violet. And then notice that you are the whole rainbow. And then notice you are the light that gives birth to every color and that the colors are different aspects of you. Direct path: investigate your nature and find out that you are light. Then notice that there are other colors avaible to you as well. Both easier said than done.

To me it looks like an overly false bravado. That's why I asked in the first place. And imo in 80% of the cases with social anxiety advise like yours won't help. It may even backfire. It's comparable wanting your cat to become social and outgoing like a dog. Won't happen. But if it works for you thats beautiful.

How does this work for you? Does this strategy work? Do you feel in touch with yourself, the moment and other people when being social?

What exactly is the situation? Can you be more specific? If you just say "social anxiety", everyone assumes they know what it looks like when in actuality it can mean so many different things to different people. And you might geht answers that doesn't even fit to your situation.

Nirvana is when everything drops away imo. Even the "I am"-consciousness with all it's qualities and states, be it love, bliss, pure consciousness, emptiness, unity, oneness, god or anything like that. My search is not over to be honest, but I have had enough experiences to know that different states in the realm of "I am"-consciousness is not Nirvana, however divine, heavenly or blissful it might seem or how "that's it!" or euphoric you feel. But I might also be wrong. Maybe even very wrong.

Ken Wilber describes it very good, eg in T.O.E., Integral Psychology or Integral Spirituality. Imo Enlightenment is not necessary like some progressive thing as it might seem with Graves/Wilber. You can even google for Ken Wilber's maps and you get a taste that the real transpersonal levels start in 3rd tier, after yellow/turquoise. As a map this stuff is really amazing. Edit: You can see it here in the first picture that Wilber uses 4 additional stages to Spiral Dynamics. https://integrallife.com/integral-post/overview-integral-theory

His map of the stages is taken from Maharishi Mahesh Yogi's 7 states (transcendental meditation) it seems like. I might take a look later.

Eckhart Tolle read books of a mystic during his youth. He did some courses on psychology and philosophy in university. And he did visit several spiritual groups and did the ACIM before his initial awakening - as far as I know. And he also says that Krishnamurti and Ramana helped him immensely for deepening bis understanding and for teaching.

You can say it like that. I guess there are people who woke up without a guru, I remembered 3-4 examples after I wrote it. But if you look at all the teachers out there, I cannot think of one who wasn't in contact with spiritual teachings or anything like that before they woke up.

Highly unlikely - imo. It's easy to underestimate the grace of a true guru. I don't know of anyone who woke up without any support.

Love says "I am everything". Wisdom says "I am nothing". Between the two, my life flows. This is a famous quote from Nisargadatta Maharaj and it shows two different aspects of reality. It doesn't matter what you "experience" first. Some people first awaken to love, some more to "emptiness". Papaji, the guru of Mooji, used - as far as I know - to say "the bird of truth needs two wings to fly. wisdom (jnana) and love (bhakti)". Inquiry (jnana) is only one approach.

What about Leonard Cohen or George Harrison? Both famous. Both highly spiritual.

Musicians that I consider awake or at least highly conscious: Jarrah, Steven Walters, Janin Devi, Deva Premal. There are many many examples.

There are lot of artists that are "spiritual". For example former lead guitarist of RHCP is deeply into meditation, as are members of Incubus. Serj Tankian from SOAD, Billy Corgan, Rick Rubin, Alanis Morisette are all more or less friends with Ken Wilber. And Ross Robinson, the famous producer, is even the son of Byron Katie. And there are also famous spiritual musicians, for example Deva Premal & Miten.

I have been at one retreat and one weekend with Adya. Other than that I've never been at a retreat with Isaac, but have been to a lot of his meetings.