Key Elements

It's your choice. I always thought, why not help? No one wants to suffer. If you were the one suffering, what would you do to get help? How would you get out of the situation? If you're not suffering, you cannot just live and then retire. Life gets dull. What will you create so that someone who is in need could find and discover a way out?

@Leo Gura have you ever pitched at a major networking event? Did it work? It takes lots of planning and patience to reach that place in one's life. Of course, it could look like this: entrepreneurship + LP. It might even be better if it looked like that because it covers the bottom/foundation of Maslow's and the viewers will be better able to recognize what it is. For some, it is a major step in the journey, so they could cover their basic needs, financial needs, and retire young without worrying for the rest of their lives. Then they could move onto the profound stuff.

@Aakash Just a thought...if you decide to come back in the forum from time to time, let us know your progress in the life purpose section. I can't think of a better pointer than your LP. However, first, try to make your LP more marketable. Become independent. I'm just speaking from experience. Take care.

Yes, go with the flow. Enjoy doing things you love, and if you can enjoy helping others in your own way, that can develop into a life purpose. Life purpose is opened to anything. You can add to it. You can transform it. You can find ways to make it more marketable. You can have something like this as your life purpose and be free: However, be aware of any limitations it has. What if you get really sick or injured and need to go to a hospital?

@thesmileyone @Nahm Thanks for the replies. I'll take them into consideration. Anyone else? The reason why I said Google-Pay is because you could download the app easily on your smartphone, put your credit or debit card on it with security, and others can pay you for your services, or you could pay them for whatever. Big businesses such as Starbucks use it, and small businesses such as mom & pop shops use it. That's what I heard, but I haven't done any transactions using it yet. I tried, but since I know that customer well, he made payment directly to my bank account via wire transfer. I'm not going to do it this way with other customers.

Does anyone use Google-Pay for money transactions online? Did you ever get paid using this method? (What is the best method for payment if you're not yet a full-flegged entrepreneur?)

"I love to shed a light, but I don't want to shed the wrong light." A former neighbor said this to me after I told her my situation.

Another thing that this topic reminds me of is, I think you can't really give a person a profound advice like that, unless you know him/her very personally, unless you're willing to listen with patience, and you're very radically open-minded. This has to happen on both sides. And, you cannot just trust anyone in revealing yourself just like that.

This topic reminds me of a saying... But, if you correct a wise man (or woman) in the wrong way, most likely, he'll not say much or anything at all. He'll just go back to doing his work, whatever that is. It will look like this:

How can you get very far; if you don't know who you are? How can you do what you ought; if you don't know what you got? And, if you don't know which to do, of all the the things in front of you, then what you'll have when you are through, is just a mess without a clue. If only you knew what and which and who. From, The Tao of Pooh It's funny how life works... I learned some information from a good book like four years ago, and I thought I understood the information. Now, when I'm trying to impliment what I learned through actions, it turns out that it's quite possible that I misunderstood. This is not the first time that I took action on that. I have tried in the past--tried and tried again. This is about my life purpose + entrepreneurship + non-duality. Let's see if the action that I've decided to do will work for me this time. The above poem came up in my mind when I had an ah-ha moment this time. This poem will probably come up another time if I have another ah-ha moment. This incident reminds me of this clip: (Self employment to big business + life's calling = unfamiliar territory It takes practice to truly realize and impliment.)

Unfortunately, many ppl, including myself, are from dysfunctional families. But, I didn't make that as an excuse to become dysfunctional. I'm not saying that I did it perfectly. The speaker in the TedX talk came a long way.

I get along with both of my teenage sons well.

If the answer to this question isn't a simple 'yes,' for any couple, the relationship won't last. If it's not 'yes,' it shows attachment, obsession, or non-acceptance. A good example would be in the TedX talk video that I posted. There was nothing wrong with her husband in her first marriage. She just left him for whatever reason.

I've been married for years (20+ yrs) so I didn't include that on my list of ten (in no particular order). I can relate to what they said here: But, I want to add that an intimate relationship is only slightly different from the relationships that you have with your immediate family (mom, dad, siblings), given that it's a functional family. The only difference is that it's intimate. That's it. That's not a big difference. But, because of the influence of society and others, the definition of an intimate relationship changes, and we try to fit into that definition/category, not realizing that we made it incredibly hard on ourselves. As Leo said in the clip above, be detached in a relationship. That's true in the relative sense. That's also true in non-duality/enlightenment because there is only "you," and you are totally detached from "yourself." Only when you embody back into your ego, that you think that what just happened is grandiose. It's not, but you become attached to that, and you have to learn to be detached from that experience in the relative truth.

From what I know, the "elephant in the room" that no one notices also relates to spirituality/non-duality. Those quotes are relative truths. The No-self (Nothingness) is without embodiment (no body), and no phenomenon (without an external environment), and when you become it, you're fully conscious of it. However, the "elephant in the room" is "empty space." It's "thin air." It has no embodiment, but it has a phenomenon. Enlightenment is the No-self, but it also involves transformation back into your ego. And yes, part of it, you become the "elephant in the room." Another name for it is the "observing self."

Whatever you're doing in life and whatever level you're on, you know it, if you're honest with yourself. Just do it well. Your job is just to pass on the message in your own way. The message doesn't have to be the most profound truth, unless you have it. Thoughts?

I've done it before. Examples. My students warned me to take down the paintings during exams to prevent cheating. I just told them that we're going to take it in another room.

@now is forever That's why I picked language. You could go anywhere you want with it. It's marketable and ppl could relate to it. Great pointer. You could talk about anything and point to anything on any subject and stage. Teach and get jobs with it, esp if you know two. It's more marketable with two.

Yes. Be careful of the orange model. Make sure your model is flexible enough so that it'll evolve all the way. Have you seen the latest version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Willie Wonka has an orange model. Charlie changed him in the end by making him more family oriented (green). Well, I suppose he could make his chocolates with less sugar and print enlightenment quotes on them to evolve.

Yes. It's not ripe yet. But, I have been working on it. I'm what they call 'early stage startup' in entrepreneurship. I could tell you this. I had a choice of choosing Mandarin or Spanish as a second language, and I picked Mandarin because it's not as similar to English. Learn what is entrepreneurship. Include entrepreneurship in your life purpose. Go networking. Lots of opportunities there. Go networking at a prestigious local university. See, a life purpose is great if it's inclusive. I picked teaching language and teaching language through art because it's flexible. Yes, you could teach spirituality and non-duality in fun, creative, artistic ways while you're teaching the language in that way too. This will cover Maslow's basic needs on the bottom of the pyrimid--teaching a skill. It goes with the quote, "Give a man a fish; feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; feed him for life." If you just teach spirituality and non-duality, you are not covering the bottom of Maslow's.

@Joseph Maynor I try to answer all the important whys before making a decision on something important. I really try not to assume something.

I just say it like it is. That's the simplest I could describe it.

Yes, I keep a journal and wrote stuff down already. I have to organize it. Are you doing a life purpose? I like to call it life's calling. 'Life purpose' as a term sounds like Leo's term. (I use terms such as Nothingness instead of No-self to be understood better in here.) A life purpose doesn't have to involve no-self or any kind of spirituality. At first, my life purpose included only art and bilingual studies, but then I decided, ok, I will include spirituality and non-duality. I will plan it like this.

@now is forever I said it before in previous threads/posts. The best I could describe it is: You become nothingness / no-self. You don't have a body, no embodiment. There is no phenomenon, no external world or universe. And, all in all, you're aware of it, fully conscious of it. Then, you make a transformation into the entire universe, and you're aware if it. You are it--everything / everythingness. Then you transform back into your body (ego). You realize that the entire world is also you. When you make this transformation, it's called Riding the Ox Backwards. You're this massive black hole from an ego's perspective. See, if you want me to explain further, it'll be a booklet. I don't want to write a book here. In my explainations, I'll also have to include how I came to know about this--my detective work. I rather tell this in 3rd person.

I'm talking about enlightenment--what happens in it. I'm not talking about who's having delusions or not. This is why I want to go into it on my life purpose. I want to say it in another way so that others will have a chance to understand. If they don't understand, that's ok too. At least I tried.