Falk

You noticed how funny this statement is in the context of talking about the ego?

Beeing all about the ego is the first step in psychological evolution, having an ego feels relativly pleasurable, we feel "powerful" or "safe" in a context where our ego "wins". This state is better than total unawareness, the ego-state is a primitive state of awareness, but the journey must go on... As i understand @Electron he isn´t promoting egoic pursuit of pleasure, he just stated that enlightenment wouldn´t be a "goal" for most people if it would mean more suffering.

says who?

Funny, i was thinking the same yesterday, and the answer might be yes, maybe... But i decided this isn´t a very profound or meaningful realization i made. It is just another idea we can have ... Who is asking this question? What implications does this question have? Is the ego proud that it can make such statements as "everything is just a trajectory from pain to pleasure?" And do you ultimately limit yourself by taking these questions too serious? (and is my ego proud, that it gave this reply? or what are my intentions? who am i anyways? )

yeah, i just read an article about self-inquiry (ramana marashi method) and how it is similar to neti-neti , this helped me a bit , i´m motivated to try self-inquiry with a new aproach, (lol no wonder i had no succes i assumed self-inquiry to be smth totaly different, more like a rational internal dialog, which always lead to an impasse for me XD) Thx! ..here is the arcticle if you are interessted (quick read, but helpful) http://www.hridaya-yoga.com/meditation-retreats/what-is-hridaya-meditation/the-self-inquiry-method-of-ramana-maharshi/

In question 3 most of you answered that "self-inquiry" help you most. I personaly find "self-inquiry" a bit difficult, since i usually end up at a point where i feel "this is useless", i suspect i´m doing it wrong, what exactly do you do in self-inquiry, can someone explain what it is exactly. i just understand now that it is not literaly asking yourself questions and getting rational answers (which i tried before and always get stuck , obviously very soon) Any advise for me?

@cetus56 yep you are right, forgot that one, should have known since this was the case with myself let´s just say we all kinda unconsciously did it because of "spiritual growth reasons" anyways , we just didn´t knew back then so it is answer a)

Just the other day i was thinking about what i would have told my 15y.o. self in retrospective to help him... i´m 33 now and happy with how my life turned out but i could have saved myself so much unnessecary suffering!! (not necessary suffering, i can´t prevent you from that, but the additional unnecessary suffering can be prevented i think) Here are the advises/ideas for 15y.o. self , that also concern your post: 1. stay away from videogames (i wasted so much time) of course my 15 y.o. self most likely wouldn´t take this advise and distrust that my future self wrote him this advise But it depends, if you find you have a balanced personality you CAN play from time to time ...if you have an addictive personlity like me (ofc i didn´t know that when i was 15) and tend to play for not only 1hour but 5,7,10hours in the lack of knowing what the fuck to do with yourself otherwise ...better draw a line and stop altogether. 2.You have to "bring up" yourself, cultivate your own personality, because even if your partens try to do it, they can not! This is a lot of responsibility for a 15y.o. but i wish i would have understood that sooner. 3.Meditate, learn spending time with "yourself" The reason why most adults are not happy / not where they wanna be in life is not because they haven´t "done" the right things, but they got distracted into doing too much shit that kept them from beeing at their core and meditation can definatly help you avoid this huge trap - maybe the no.1 trap of life. 4. Concerning you don´t feel fullfilled ...for me in retrospective it had a lot to do with the friends i choose...especially when i was 17/18+ Don´t hang around with people you only have a good time with when you take drugs or play video games ...THOSE people are not real friends ...they are just other victims, they can´t and they won´t help you!! Even if it is hard i wish i would have stayed away from those people in retrospective.. hope this helps

Hey there First of all!! the title says "im better THEN others" ...it is: "better THAN!! others" ...gosh...i´m so much better than you 1. "i have bad toughts i wanna get rid of them" you are judging "yourself" ...stop judging?! 2. practice awareness, just notice the thoughts and notice the feelings ... an enlightened "person" it not someone who never has thoughts that you would label as "bad" but someone who never engages in those thoughts and never shames himself for "having" them... thoughts are thoughts are thoughts ...see them...moove on... The need for a cleansed/steril/perfect inner world is neurotic ...( AAAND im judging again damn the world of words is tricky, but i hope you kinda get what i might wanted to say between the lines... )

worth "it"? what is "it"? want to impress "the bitches"? ..then maybe worth... For health? totally worth! also... if someone looks at you wrong at the mall you can be like : yo! sup? gotta prolim mate? gonna kick yoass!! I go to the gym for 2 years now and i feel pretty good...also don´t kick peoples ass at the mall pls, be friendly!

I was thinking along the same lines lately, (also i wouldn´t say enlightenment is "nothing more" than ..this or that...but i´m quite shure the mind state that people associate with the term "enlightenment" has a lot to do with a Balance between the left and the right hemisphere, as opposed to beeing left brain or right brain dominated. I experienced this because i was experimenting with an interessting technique that i came up myself (im crazy like that sometimes ) I meditate say 40minutes with the left eye closed and the left ear with ear plug, so this side just gets very little input (i can´t stop the physical sensations on left body half but those are minimal while sitting still ... then i do another 40 minutes with the right eye/ear closed/plugged. It is super interessting, after 10-15minutes a shift happens and i usually get very tired/ unfocused if the left half is shut down, i also usually get songs stuck in my head on one side, and always get al lot of thought aka words/sentences with the right "side active" also Planing things occurs alot on the right side on rarely on the left side, with the left side "active" i usually feel quite "desireless" like a child ... it is really fascinating ... try it for yourself ... the effect gets more prominent the longer you do each side I would say you actually get to know to 2 parts of your personality "clean" for themselves...after that i do 20min with both eyes ears open to integrate the whole experience ... enjoy

So i recently decided to consciously spend more time with consciously labeling my "inputs" Leo talks about this in some video as well... You just sit down for X minutes (i usually do 60 or 90min) and be aware and whatever input is present you notice it and label it accordingly For those who have no idea what this means, here is a small Example of how this might looks like: You hear the river in background - notice - and internaly label it: "hear" A bird flys by- notice it - label it: "see" "I have to call person XY back" -notice- "thought" A bird chirps: hear Chirps again: hear Again chirps "That fucking bird" - thought ...and so on , you get the idea I don´t know why, but this "practice" or meditation (if you can call it that) is absolutely amazing. You will go off into spontanious laughter all the time, because you just look at how you perceive things and how limited your senses actually are, and also how your mind comments on those things and just comes up with random ideas ...once you detach and just label them it is just hilarious. I also noticed some interessting things: A) There are actually 2 kinds of desire, there is desire as in "feeling horny" - label : feeling since you actually feel it in your body , and then there is this "i want to be rich" or "i want this or that" - label: thought. It is NOT something you feel in your body is just a sentence, just a thought ... interessting right? B) When you don´t label a feeling right away (specially when the feeling is strong and or negative!) and it just stays there "unrecognized" the suddenly tons of thoughts come up, and i wondered WTF! is happening, where do all these thoughts come from untill i felt the feeling again and labeled it and the thoughts instantly stopped - i had to laugh really hard because again: it is so obvious when you say it but to experience it is quite powerfull. We are such machines C) The brain seems to be able to lable sights and sounds right away, but thought can only be labeled (oftentimes) with a small delay while thinking or even only after the though is finished, sometimes the thought triggers one others thought and one other thought and only then you can regonize them and label them : again, quite powerfull to see this. D Also i noticed how the brain really really!! likes it when something new happens. e.g. when a new sound comes up or when something mooves. I know it sound obvious when you say it, but it is very strong. So, well, maybe anyone of you also fuck with this technique tell me what you... "think"

Some people can turn everything into a contest of "who is right and who is wrong" "My reality is the REAL reality and yours is just the STUPID reality, i´m enlightend and you are not so go and suck my dick!"

Usually talking shit about people is caused by perceiving them and yourself as objects ..then the story goes like this: "object A" (your enemy) is decreasing the value of "object B" (yourself) by saying or doing this or that. So logicaly if "object A" is an idiot than what he said or did is not reasonable, therefore it can´t deminish the value of "object A" ...day saved! This is the easy logic behind the whole need for talking shit about people

Hello Friends This is my first time!! expercience with strong determination sitting (sds) English is not my native language, but i read a lot in english and i learn now words/vocabulary every day. Feel free to correct me if you see a mistake! I meditate every day (very few exeptions to be honest) since 8 weeks. Started with mainly breating and mindfulness-meditation lately nothingness-meditation. I already see positive effects. Beeing more calm/balanced, more productive (i did a LOT! of stuff in the last 2 weeks only, seemingly without effort and without forcing myself, i just did it!), less self-hating ^^(yes i told myself sometimes how bad my life is/ or how good it WAS before i srewed up etc...) less complaining and more pro-active behavoir, and i feel im on the right path! Work to do! I just did 80 Minutes of SDS. It was totaly different from what i expected, it started of quite underwhealming for me just to bring me to places where i wasnt able to get to in the last 8 weeks with my other medi-techniques! Now that i did it i can say im glad i did and i will continue with sds every day throughout march. I feel like maybe 10% of this firsttime i can NOT recreate, but 90% of what i expericed can be accuratly be recalled. here and there might be a small chronologic jump. Some of this protocoll is "direct speech" or "flow of consciousness-speech" and some of it i edited into correct sentences.^^ 1. THE START I was sitting on my chair, silent humming of my refridgerator in the other room, i put on a sweater so getting cold wont be a topic/additional distraction, since i expect the partice of sds to be hard from what i read about it. straight back sitting on my chair i close my eyes... after 10sec already ^^ omg! how long am i in this? 10sec maybe? shit! a THOUGHT!!... wait it is ok im alowed to think in this one. but i didnt think a lot i didnt try to think something actively most of the time but it felt comfortable knowing that if i do, it is not a problem. god! this is borring! and also way to easy i just sit here ..so what? how long now? 5minuntes maybe? ...im made for this. this is waaaay too easy slight pain in the back ..maybe a 2 on a scale from 0 to 10. i can ignore it. Thought occurs: probably becasue im a sportive guy i released all my body energy already by doing gym-work and badminton yesterday so my body feels realy calm, maybe those ppl who struggle with "sds" are all overweight americans ^^ (sorry guys!^^) they think it is so hard but actually im way better than them... (ofc you are) how long now? 10minutes maybe? this is so easy what´s the point? should i even go on? couldnt i use my time better? couldnt i use the 80minutes for breathing meditation or nothingness meditation (which i did the last week every day and felt positive about it since i did it even thou i found it extremly hard to do the first times) wouldnt that be a better use of time , maybe im not made for this? WOuldnt it be better to stop now and do something else something "harder" .... pain in the back goes up to 3 ..still i ignore it. OR!! now a different thought occured... since i find it so easy...can i do this even longer than 80minutes ? i could do 5 hours...i can just ignor my timer when it goes of and do it longer they will be so impressed on the forum if i tell them^^ wait isn´t it a realy bad reason to want to impress people? i realized that impressing is kinda important to me and it is no coincidence that i want to do it here in this practice too and this might be my first small realization. I was not thinking: I SHOULD NOT impress or swearing i will never try to impress someone again from now ..but just realizing / narrating to myself objectively that i DO have the tendency to wanting to impress ppl in the last months/years and i felt intuitivly that is not realy something im proud of ^^ and i should keep an eye on that! ..nothing more and norhing less for the moment then my handy rang ..shit! (the first call). who could it be? someone at work, they sometimes call me when they need something i must help them out with, or maybe i forgot something important...nah! maybe my friend is calling asking me if we go bouldering today? but i cant since i hurt my ankle at badminton yesterday... maybe my father is calling? maybe i did something wrong maybe my aunt asking me if i can go buy food for my grandmother? it stopped ringing. it is not imporant right now...i have my free day, i dont have to take calls. i wont die! if i dont take the call.. it is fine! ok back to: this is easy im made for this, then i felt bad : pain in the back increased to 4-5, still no problemo but it is annyoing. leo said it will be worth to do "sds" maybe he doesnt know that im different, that it is too easy for me. if he could see how easy i sit here for like 15minutes now he would recommend me to do "breathing meditation" instead or someting else. ------------- 2. BREAKING UP then my state kinda changed and i cant quite remember / reconstruct how it exactly came to be. i didnt feel a hard change while i was doing it, but recalling it is a bit foggy for me. i know it had something to do with this: for some reason i cant quite remember the cause (althou it is probably secondary) i felt guilty , maybe because i mooved a bit while i shouldnt? and i went like: you piece of shit! you mooved! you failed..you fucking idiot! and i sometimes talk to myself in that way always implying that i dont realy mean it, it is more to motivate me ^^ now i realized that it is not realy helpful if i insult myself for doing something wrong?! also somehow that everytime i realize something, learn something about myself, i feel like there is the old me (not knowing the new thing) and the new me (knowing the new thing) and then the 2 are getting into a kind of micro-fight with each other, who´s the better "I" ...i realized this is fucking tragic! WTF am i doing? i realzied and remembered that i do this on a daily basis never beeing able to see what happens...that 2 mini-egos fight each other over who is the boss! first i felt mooved by this realization ...it wasnt realy crying. just feeling realy mooved by realizing how i get into arguments with myself, beeing able to see how sad this is! 2 tears went from my eyes, 1 right and 1 left. It didnt feel like crying, just like water is coming out of my eye. both waterdrops went down my face to my mouth and the right one was bigger i guess and went further to my chin. i felt something changed, i knew this place where i am now. i realzied that i have so many unrealsitic ideas about getting enlightend or the way i can change throu meditation, i can become this new "super human" kind of guy almost godlike ^^ in a way , my goals are actually ridicoulous i realized now, it will make "click" and im perfect i will understand everything and be happy for all the time ^^ i know and i knew of course: that cant be achieved it is just a child fantasy but at the same time a part of me still wants that or wanted that, i also cant exclude that the wish wont appear ever again , it probably will but next time it comes i can see it from another persepective. because now that i have seen what it ACTUALLY means to learn something about myself, to starting to know myself better, i realized what i can actually get from meditation and how it is so much more worth to me than beeing perfect and happy all the time or even like beeing a super-alfa-male 24/7 ^^ i thought about how tragic humans are, how most of them try their best to be happy (like me) but they only cause pain in themself and others cause they dont know what they do and what they are. the difference between the human intention to do good and actualy doing harm without knowing made me cry. it was too much at that point. it seemed so sad, so heartbreakingly tragic that all those peolpe realy honestly want to be happy but they all fail cause they dont understand shit ^^ 2 more tears go down my face... (now comes a part which does not! represent any political standpoint on the question of how to treat criminals, but it is rather an experience in empathy and seemingly understand the suffering of a psychopath/murderer) the topic about why people do bad things without knowing it took me to the question about criminals. why do some people kill others. why do some people become insane killers. are those people realy evil, or are they just completly diconnected from their own inner life from their emotions. what is wrong with them? of course i want them to be locked away and in prison but also i thought maybe they are helpless. what kind of pain must have been inflicted on them in order to create such personalites that can´t feel for others anymore that are completly numb. i saw those killers as childern and feeling sorry for them getting beaten in fact i thought: how dare i - how ignorant of their suffering do i have to be to judge those people i have no idea what they went throu!! start crying again this time with opened mouth , couldnt keep it closed , felt like caughing in an emotional way realized i should return to my pratice to not moove now but it is fine i mooved affectivly couldnt stop it now return to pratice... i thoght this year had already had 8 weeks and in this last 10minutes i had more meaningfull personal realizations about myself and the world than in the last 8 weeks. even thou i did my routin, 1 hour meditation , breating medi, body scan sometimes, nothingness medi the last week which realy felt like stepping it up for me, but i usualy had only positiv feelings, i smiled i had moments of joy even bliss in the meditation, i even had moment where i went: oooh! THAT`S WHO i am , or Ohhh! right im not that (rather abstractions/ feelings almost autosuggestive realizations) also i faced fear (in one of my first meditations in january i had the sense that someone stands behind me and wants to murder me ^^ i sat though that and made me face it ..it never came back or only in a softer form and then it went away) i never had concrete realizations about myself, what EXACTLY almost scientificaly it is that i am, what i do, how i behave. this time i had that and it made me cry i felt that having an epiphany that makes you cry because your realze how wrong and almost tragic your behaviour is worth more than smiling or feeling bliss... then again i realized that there is probably a time for each of them i wouldnt want only crying all the time ^^ but for now im realy glad i could get those insights! ------------------ 3. CALMING DOWN / JOY i hoped i can recall everything or maybe the most important things for people to read beacuase i also enjoy reading such protocols by others to kinda see what they saw. also i realized that by beeing prepared to narrate my experience it made the experience more clear for me. it reminded me of this psycho-therapy technique of just narrating what happend without judging, just objective desciption of events. i feel i was able to do this for the most part in the last 15minutes of this sds. i wished for it to end now and i felt like i realy enjoy it. i thoguht ok it was enough now. i have to write it down and let it breathe take a break now. OR! maybe i could go even deeper now...but there is still time the next weeks i will do this daily. so no hurry! i felt realy relaxed now, my back pain had completely gone and instead i felt warm and unified like ... you may laugh now: i felt like a banana it must sound horrible but it was realy funny and i had to laugh myself when i tried to explain to myself how i feel now and i came up with the banana comparison ^^ my body feeling was good i felt like one huge slightly rounded thing beeing whole. i felt like i expanded. i could still feel my body borders as a silouette but i was also in the whole room filling it up, it was realy nice! i felt refreshed and i enjoyed it. ----------------------- 4. LAST MINUTES / WORK TO DO... one time at the end maybe 5-10 minutes before the alarm went of i licked my lips and i thought ..awww np i wont tell them! wait what? im going to lie about stupid shit like that just to make me look better ^^ LOL i had to chuckle this is ridicoulous ..did i actualy just thought about lying , trying to make me look better even i realized earlyier in the sds that i shouldnt do that. that i should try to impress people. here i also had to smiled and realize it will take MORE! than only realizing things to stop bad habits in myself, bad habits have a momentum they are automatic almost and i have to be aware of them and stop them everytime they will occur in the next weeks/month. then i went nah ok...ofc i will tell becasue if i lie that makes me feel bad.. then i realized not lying just because you feel bad is also not a realy good reason isnt it? but i couldnt think of a better reason right now and i felt no urge to do so since im mainly supposed to sit still in this technique. then the second call came... i thought np. i wont answer it is fine... it stoped 1minute later the alarm went of. i did it! 80 something minutes... i waited the alarm to stop /wanted to do bonus time for some reason and then when it stopped i breathed sometimes in and out streched my back, and then started to open my eyes...eyelashes beeing glued together by dried tears ^^ i felt fine. i want to write down everything...here i am!

Appoligies accepted , you are now officially part of the cult , so repeat after us : *ALL HAIL LEO* have to do this while drinking the blood of a virgin rabbit (not funny? ok sorry )

@SaynotoKlaus How is the rest of your life going? Relationship, work, health etc... A mental breakdown? Have you consulted a doctor with the whole "getting unconscious while meditating" thing? From what you describe there seems to be a serious problem somewhere, is there anything you didn´t tell here?

- Use Sunblock in the high sun hours - spend 2-3 hours in the sun everyday for melatonin ( best are the 3 hours in the morning!) -eat fruity FROOOOTS coconuts, pineapples, mangos, oranges, strawberrys, blueberrys ...aweseome! -go swimming whenever you can (good for spine and back muscles) -don´t waste time with tv or internet in the summer ...and keep the habit when winter comes

@jes Good question: I actually asked myself that question some month ago, and my answer was , i want to travel, i want to have more time for myself, meditation and sport and quit my job (since i now have enough money) i would still work but i would work on whatever i like not what i need to do to earn money.... So as a consequence of that and the fact that i asked myself "what if i was to die at the end of this year" i decided to actually travel throu europe this summer also spend 1 week in portugal , so if i really were to die in the end of the year i could at least say: at least i travelled a bit! Also i started to cut alot of activities so i can spend time with my hobbies music and sport more ..i made that change as well so again when i die i don´t have to regret that i had no time for the things i love money & death!! Those 2 mofos ... confront them daily

Yes the book is has cool insights but also be carefull not to fall all too deep into this "stereotypical" view of the super alpha/dominant man & trying to "fuck the world" (in a positive way) ... because it can become another neurotic overreaction to the normal human feeling of sometimes feeling inadequat , which is fine (it doesn´t mean your a wimp when you don´t always have all the answers and fuck all women you see ) ... the book really tries to avoid that for the most but just saying watch out for that...

@Mal yes! i love you too mal

so the solution is clear: get a girlfriend and have sex and since you are on this site i can´t avoid to say: start a meditation habit !

Yes! ...OR!! ...(since you dropped the "big word" in the title of this threat) use the 3 hours to just sit in the garden by yourself and see what happens

@falobma Do you have this fetish only in your choice of watching porn or do you have this fetish also when you see a hot woman in real life? So when you see a woman in real life do you think "she is hot i wish someone else would fuck her and i watch" ...or do you think "i wanna have sex with her myself" ? My suspicion is, it is the last one and the fetish is something that developed solely as a porn-related phenomenon. But independent of what the answer is , i would recommend you to stop watching porn alltogether, and especially if you find your cuckold-fetish to be related to porn mainly. I know a lot of people who watch tons of porn and they all developed super weird fetishes over the time, from tentacle porn to rapefantasies ...and trust me all of those guys would never want to actually happen ANY of this in real life so don´t worry , but take it into serious consideration what i said and actually stop the porn habit...it will benefit your sex-life (coming soon... no pun intended) and your emotional-life and ...well life in general peace

Ok cool, thx for answering.