alyra

ah! this one I get

backsliding there are four important things to know about it - all four pretty important too - 1) it's going to happen - growth is not constant, and there will be moments it stalls or backslides - finding what to do when low is its own skill to work on 2) it isn't the end of growth. You didn't fail. Picking yourself up again is what consistency is. 2.a) You probably have retained some growth but aren't noticing it, and what you have accomplished before is practice - it might be easier to learn again, or learning might open up to more deep understanding not noticed the first time. 2.b) be careful - sometimes backsliding... is really hard to recover from... if so, find a new path to forge, as if a floor fell out and now you have to go around it.... 2.c) Sometimes notice that what you were doing didn't fully work, and modifying the technique or taking a different approach is smarter 3) Beating yourself up will only sink you in. Look for what motivates you, not for excuses. At times it is fine to look for why, in order to prevent it again - but don't forget to just look for reasons to keep going, to re-motivate. Looking for excuses is searching for reasons to keep wallowing. Remember to acknowledge any negative emotions, behaviors, etc. - they are part of your experience. But don't moralize those... there's no need. Recognize what you don't want as something to avoid, recognize what you do want as something to pursue, this is all that is needed. You are not a bad person because you did [X] - but you do recognize [X] as something you don't want to repeat. 4) Be careful - because what you accomplished before might not yet be repeatable. I will use an analogy to explain... Right now, some of my body has good strength, but lacks mobility. Other parts of my body has good mobility, but lacks the needed strength. As I do my yoga to restore my health - sometimes I am overambitious - strike a pose I can't hold, and it only stresses the strength tissues. Sometimes I over-apply my strength expecting the mobility to match it - but all I do is overextend. It is the same way with backsliding - we have lost what we could do, but still expect to be able to do it. This can cause "over-extensions" or "over-exertions" that get in the way of growth - or even cascade into more backsliding.

@Dan Arnautu you are so generous! Didn't read the whole thread yet sorry if you answered this already. My biggest struggle is that I have too many issues in life that I am behind in, some of which endanger my health, most of which sum up to render me unemployable altogether. I need to balance multiple growth and habit-changing at the same time, and scheduling is a weakness of mine. I feel overwhelmed by how much I need to keep track of, and often have inconsistencies in important things that make things worse for me. It isn't an issue that is fixed by focusing on one thing.. because then everything else goes to hell and I go backwards overall. It isn't an issue that is resolved be removing myself from the needs I believe in, I do that already, but it won't change the fact that my body is weak and fragile, that I spend 1k of my parents money a month and barely afford to get the help I want to get with that money, and often lose hope random days of the week from too much stress. What I want assistance in - advice - is, how to balance over 50 needs where I can only seriously work on about five at a time? (I am able to balance the rest well enough that they only slowly deteriorate, but for the past two years I've just been cycling through different groups of goals I need to work towards, which means I make growth and then lose it over and over - overall I improve over time, but I want a more effective strategy) (some of these things are probably many of the things already mentioned here - focus, motivation, money, relationships, I will go and read them when I have time to dedicate to such research later... but my main priority is balancing it all)

take time to turn off your computer and put it in a closet for several days every once in a while. really helps! put your phone on airplane mode, or outright turn it off. remove your favorite apps that aren't actually useful or can be replaced with means outside the phone. I have lots of issues with addictive patterns but fixing them is a low priority. still, there are times I do prioritize work there, and over the years my addiction is much more curbed. still have random hours of some days I dump into online communities. At least I'm not constantly coming back throughout every day, and often have days I just skip out entirely.

I like @Michael569's point. His old videos are still up, and we can easily be inspired by them again, perhaps even find new insight we've overlooked. I slowly try to accumulate a bookmarks library of videos worth revisiting, tho right now I'm doing that from Tai's channel. yeah! same! Leo was pretty important in my self-awakening to really getting on the right path.

@wavydude right on! @mp22 me too. I figure, well, he's doing what is best for him. I gotta forge my own path now

is there a book that you've read that talks about maya, and atman, that you'd recommend?

oh - thank you this means a lot to me (totally not hitchhiking with the thread)

hm? this maybe?

humans are driven. find that drive.

@Joseph Maynor thanks

Hi this is the second time I am asking this question. I think I figured out how to ask it better this time. I am sorry if the question seems seemingly simple but I take a long time to set up the asking. Last time I asked this question I got a lot of people ignoring the question to tell me not to ask it. I want to see what it is like to fear death. I don't think I have had that fear truly before in my life, and if I have, it slipped out of my memory, unnoticed. I want to see that fear of death, understand it, or at the least, be able to compare life and death in a meaningful way. currently death has no meaning to me, and I do not fear it... I'm not really sure what to say. The methods for consciousness work I currently use limit how I can pursue that. I only practice Acitve Mindfulness, where I practice my awareness, or other mental skills, while being active throughout the day. When I spend time contemplating, it is during walks. Otherwise I am simply practicing returning to awareness as often as I can, and increasing my ability for it. This primarily comes from the statement, "awareness alone is curative" - compared with my need to be motivated and capable of taking action. So, I will be walking when I contemplate the fear of death. That is the limit to what work I will be doing towards understanding or experiencing the fear of death. I tried comming up with ideas, tried contemplating it a few times, but I feel lost, and am looking for suggestions. I need a different angle, one that I have overlooked - and I've honestly got no angles at all. My best idea was to investigate the fleeting nature of life, but that has got me no where meaningful. Two questions, either or both, I am seeking an answer to: How can I contemplate the fear of death while walking, to either understand it, or experience it directly? What is it like to fear death? please do not get distracted by the following: I am not going to run into the street or anything along that line. I am not going to do any drugs. Those of you who think I shouldn't fear death, just leave. You only show your arrogance and uselessness as a peer to peer mentor if you fail to accept my simple and direct question. don't try to talk about ego. 90% of the forums right now are obsessed with ego, and as such, the discussion is spam. I have ego. You have ego. It is what it is. Ignore it, if you cannot, then don't post here please. similarly, 75% of the boards go on and on about enlightenment, consiousness, and nonduality on a level where they literally contradict themselves or other posts just to explore cleverness. I am not seeking that here. The neti neti method is not one I want to apply to my seeking the fear of death. Please trust that I know what I am seeking and asking for, and answer one or both of my questions directly. Do not try to analyze who I am or try to argue against what I seek. again, sorry for the long post. TL:DR/summary - answer this question: "how can I fear death?" or this one: "what is it like to fear death?" - and don't go see it as anything other than a simple question. no drugs no ego no "you shouldn't fear death". I have a pursuit I want to test out to see where it leads me. I found myself stuck, not sure of how to pursue it. I am simply looking for some way to move forward in my pursuit.

KISS - Keep It Simple, Stupid! words to live by! I've also found success in checking "is what I'm doing my priority?" I've also found success in considering in the moment - what is realistic? and don't forget - awareness itself is curative if you can keep constant acute awareness throughout the entire process of a thing - you will naturally move towards improvement. Even just a marginal amount of awareness can make a real difference as you work towards growth in some aspect. oh and - to stop a bad habit, the best way to do it is - create a new one. identify what you get out of the bad habit that you use/appreciate/need/rely on, and replace it with a new habit that provides the same function without the same cost.

The most convincing argument I respect in advocacy of being vegan is the inefficency that eating animals has for feeding a population of 7+ billion I am not a vegan because I have more pressing priorities that hold me back, and being a vegan requires care as you learn it for if you fuck up your nutrition that got tragic results. gotta be care of the risk, with vegan - best advice, don't jump straight into it. Eat between 1 vegan meal a week and 1 vegan meal a day. maybe make a vegan dish but eat it with meat on the side - to practice preparation of vegan dishes. uh - whatever way you do it, identify something about being vegan and practice that first, and while you do learn about the nutrition. over the course of 3-15 months, slowly wean yourself onto the vegan diet, as you come also to learn about the essentials of nutrition - and don't forget to use the experiences your body gives you to confirm what you hear - don't trust the confusing messages that are the field of nutrition if your body rebels against it. trust what your body loves. beware: rant ahead regarding morality - I laugh. people obsess over protecting animals but don't even realize half the damage they do to animals- and certainly don't value the damage the do to themselves, plants, or what they dismiss as consiousless inaminate objects. You say the rock ain't aware and I ask what is sitting still on a ground? what is suppressing that ground? what is sound when the rock falls - and the impact it has? what is erotion? what is the plants and fungus that grow upon the rock and in its cracks? why is one rock this way and the other that way? I forget who said it that I heard - but all things have personality. personality meaning, how it exists. This is consiousness too. change is consiousness. we are not the limit to consiousness - and moralizing over preserving the life of animals completely misses the reality that all of existence is precious. In order to create we must destroy. This is the necessary nature of diversity. we must survive by eating - we must grow by destroying. there is no creation without destruction. I would never be a vegan for fear of killing a precious animal. I would be a vegan for the reality of realizing the waste of resources that is raising an animal just to consume it for our energy and products and game. but then, if that were a moral issue, we should just end our own life, as the most costly consumer of all - and we do not do that for a reason. So the morality is just a red herring by my books. sorry for the rant.

IDK I don't see ego as bad nor as something that leaves. it's still here. everything in moderation. also, a community is an average of those that are within it, and their actions and concerns imfluence the others as well. They sync up. I never saw the "ego" that the community was obsessed with as bad - I may have been irritated by the constant discussion of ego, and when people got arrogant and blind to what others are - that was irritating too. But it is what it is, and it is necessary to be broken if you are going to fix what's broken I don't think my words are expressing my thoughts on the matter very well. I just - oh, I get it. I know that I move towards self-actualization via the ego, embracing what is dual. Whereas most the forums, in following leo's path, are doing the opposite - removing themselves from the dual in pursuit of absolute existence. either path is just as reasonable as the other for many of this forum, they were troubled by the way their ego affected themselves. And on average they faced that, and found growth. I am certain that leo's actions to assist have helped - but don't denounce your own effort too! in fact it is loving ego where the belief that change has happened comes from by celebrating the steps you've made recently in "ego death" you only embrace and cherish ego PS. nonetheless, I miss the value that liking a post has

sorry if this comment is a little random just popping in from seeing your title - for me, I think of limits according to their boundary rather than what meets them. i'm not exactly sure that that really captured the nuance,,, for me, when conceptualizing things and words and ideas, I am pretty free to let the boundary that limits its meaning to be minimal if not completely irrelevant, and make metaphors between things really easy. and when I saw the question regarding skateboarding and physical limits.. well there is two aspects and the one is what you will not pass, and what right now you could not pass if you tried, or might hurt yourself if you did. but the other aspect is the limit of what you think. And negotiating between those two aspects of a limit is what I am trying to address with my post. so for example for me, I have often been very easy to ignore the definition or belief as I compare two things as metaphors, but also I've been the same for me in setting myself out to do some task or believing my body or mental capacity could handle some endeavor, only to wear myself out and give up out of exhaustion pain or something along that line. So I have to practice being realistic, and not confusing the dream with the capabilities, that it is inevitable that we grow. even when we are close to the maximum possible we still grow (or lose our stregth) over time, and so often for someone at the limit to their body - they don't actually hit it but wax and wane near it through practice and etc. so how to surpass your physical limits - I anticipate you ask that because you see others who have passed your limits and want to find that too. And I also wonder if you are needing the opposite side of the two aspects I mentioned - that you are too realistic to what you can/cannot do, and not willing to negotiate with that limit to push it. To grow in the way optimized for health of the improvement - so you both improve but also don't destroy yourself doing it - one needs to be aware of what their limit is, and when they meet it, push it without breaking it. And keep doing that, each time proving to themselves they can be stronger, but at the same time building that strength itself. Hopefully this 3-minute thoughtdump was meaningful to you! best regards!

After some of the discussion points I read this morning, and that video, I took a walk and... took another one too. it's odd how much shook up I felt today. not odd as in unexpected but, odd becuase... I felt a twinge of discomfort and depression coming at me between facing this discussion this morning, but also in my disapointment when I realized today wasn't monday yet. between the two my motivation I woke up with hit a brick wall - I mean naturally I managed to move forward as that's one of the things I'm working on. but, nonetheless - what was odd - was that despite feeling generally "eh" about the day after 11:am - every time I took a moment to check myself I was reminded of the video I saw this morning, and the perspectives the replies of this thread have offered for me. I don't really know what to say... it was as if I was emotionally hit by the experience and reflections, but at the same time I wasn't. that is why it was odd. I feel that I am actually moving now in my contemplation and active mindfulness work regarding this topic, so thanks to all who replied.

@TheEnlightenedWon indeed! thanks!

fear is consiousness, dumbass.

thank you that's very clever, I never considered the contrast to death that is pure loss in enjoyment. happiness. thrill. any positive moment of our life... is that the sheer opposite of death? There's a lot of wisdom that I can contemplate there, when I am next able to . oh... natural disaster... yeah. I am ashamed to realize that I just glaze over such news. I have never witnessed any devastating event, and hope I never will. I guess too I have sometimes thought of car accidents, or faced the fear of death when out and about, but my instinct has been to freeze up and forget what I shouldn't have control to enact (the kind of random thoughts or impulses of "if this happened, trauma would result" and it is an action I could actually take - not a wanting for an action but in realizing the truth of it, that is frightening. I have been automatically suppressing those and just now realize those are moments of fear of death too) I even heard this morning on NPR a man was interviewed who either is or used to be an NRA member, discussing the impact witnessing the aftermath of a shooting had on him... processing the actions that did not take place that could've or even should've been done... processing what he saw... this is one thing he said, a phrase he repeated three or four times and it really shook me up to hear it said. I actually also heard just yesterday someone said something about death.. was it "if you will probably not die within the next three to five years but you don't really know. It could be tomorrow, it could be a few years from now. It could be after a long life. You don't know. People mark their age according to their birth but if only we could mark our age according to our death." Your comment is similar but opposite to that. To face the reality that we cannot know. We could die any moment.

@Shin lmao men and women can submit to crazy bdsm shit lolol thanks for the contemplation method advice. Stuff like that I am willing to do when needed and this is a good time to apply it. I'd need to plan my first "retreat" tho... maybe I will! @Saumaya if you still think it's necessary to tell me I shouldn't pursue the fear of death, you continue to misunderstand the validity in such a pursuit, and continue to ignore your bias against my perspective. I suggest you do some work to understand the variance in existence that we can never truly master. No matter what theory we learn, no matter what experience of consciousness we feel, we are inherently limited and can never truly understand the reality of the unlimited. Also, I have full right to say whatever the fuck I want. Just as you exercised your right to ignore it. So the fuck what?

......... wow... this is... fuck. I....... thank you for sharing this. that was so powerful. I don't even know what I could say to respect it. I come to realize the reality of the fact that I can never know the fear of death like that man did. If I would, I would not come out of it alive.. and if I did... I would wish I hadn't. When he asked for his mouth to be wiped that was so moving to see the humanity of the gesture. When he spoke his last words I cried. and this isn't even addressing the unprofessionalism of the execution. but how can we even incorporate that into death itself...

huh, true. but.. only some people do die. when I die, there will be 11 billion people who did not die. edit: and theres only been about 20 million people born so far.

Hi, so all my life I honestly I don't fear death. It's something that'll happen and I am ok with that. to a certain extent I want to prolong life of course, but not to the extent that death scares me. I know that I will work to prevent death if it comes around, not just roll over - but ultimately this is not from fear, but from the principle of the matter. it has been my belief for a long time, that as long as I am here I might as well make the best of it - that it is in fact a critical part of being with this life, that I work to keep it if death comes knocking. does this explain it well? so anyway that is the intro. but the issues is - well - the rabbit often escapes the fox, because the fox does not run for his life. and in this way I have been the fox. I do not fear death. so I do not become motivated to make the life matter. maybe in principle I intent to, and believe I do. but I do not. So I am looking for advice, as I move forward in trying to learn to fear death. any advice on how to do it?

find a way to be mindful but impulsive. impulsive but focused. action is your power.