Max_V

Various Radiohead albums lately. This one I find really chill. Sit back and mindfully listen to every note, every little detail. It’s so beautiful

I'm curious. Can there be an authentic desire to build muscle and get your body as healthy as possible, or, is this always egoic -- wanting to look good, not being content with your self-image, etc --- ?

@Space Yes that’s important. Without it you could start inquiring mechanically.

I’ve been doing self inquiry for about two 2 months consistently and one thing I theme I noticed reoccuring is this deep existential fear that comes once in a while. I just had it again. It was after Leo’s video on strange loops that I started self-inquiry. I sat down with already much fear in my body, my heart beating heavily, and the fealing of fear shivering throughout my entire body. At some point, it got so bad, if felt like my body was actually thinking it was going to die. I started feeling lightheaded, my heart beating so fast I couldn’t sense its rythem anymore, it was the scariest moment of my life. I became aware of the deep, deep attachement I have with existing. To the point where I had to stop the inquiry because it felt like my heart was going to explode. How can I help my body accept and surrender to not being a self? How can I change the deep belief that my body will die during this process? Surrendering to this litteraly felt impossible. It was against my entire intuition of being human whatsoever.

@Space It's almost as if I don't want to tell you how to get here because it is scary as fuck and I feel so much resistance. But here you go: I don't really do anything special. The only thing maybe out of the ordinary is that I try to focus on this journey the entire day. It's not something I just do sometimes, it's becoming my life. As for practices: I try to remain mindful 24/7 and during self-inquiry I just go and see what I identify as 'me'. Then I close my eyes and try to pinpoint where I go. When I get a clear sense of that, inquiry begins.

@Shroomdoctor 30 minutes every day, although I haven’t been able to do it for that much yesterday. also throughout my day I try to ‘find’ this sense of ‘I’ and see where it takes me.

That’s it, I tried to face the fear again. I went with a loving approach towards the body and gave myself permision to stop if it got too bad. In the end I just sat through most of the fear because I strongly felt this had nothing to do with my body dying. Something else was dying. There were a couple insights to be had. - I have the belief that for a body to exists, it needs a self, without it, it will die. - All the things I think that I am, my insecurities, fearful reactions in situation, behaviour is just an addon to who I truely am. It doesn’t define that one. I don’t know how I will move forward now, I guess I will just keep on contemplating and researching and investigating. This probably wasn’t some big awakening, but it does feel like my sense of self has shifted and some new insights were found. @JustinS @Leo Gura @Shin @Nahm

@Shin I guess I’m not ready yet. Not ready to let go of this persona and attachments. On one hand I want this very much On the other hand it feels impossible to go do this without ‘myself’. There is the inner assumption that this ‘myself’ has been experiencing everything. When I give up on it and let go, I won’t exist anymore. this happens every time. I meditate a lot, read a lot on enlightenment, study my experience, but when the moment comes that I have to surrender ‘me’, there is a backing down and an instinct that says “No, this can’t be!” There is the deep belief that body and self are linked. That without the self, my body will die

@Joseph Maynor @Shin I see what’s going on here ?

@phoenix666 Thanks, I guess love and acceptance really comes into play here. Pretty beautiful when you think about it, my body is reacting in such a way is just because it wants to protect. I mean, that is love itself.

@JustinS I have had some intuition towards this aswell. The longer I have been into pursuing Truth, the more surrendering becomes an option. Even though just now I couldn’t surrender at all, it still felt more viable of an option then when I started having this fear for the first time. I guess letting it play out and just keeping at it will be everything I can do heh?

@Nahm I will give it shot, thanks @JustinS No I havent. I might do it in the future. I have a couple reasons for that, 1) me being (almost) 18 and living at home with a family 2) Being too scared to since I have no control over what will happen.

@Leo Gura Ye it’s really starting to dawn me, this process is way different than I anticipated when I started. When I started this journey it was just that I wanted Enlightenment because it sounded cool and the concept looked way better than my current experience of life. This was just a complete illusion. I guess I will just let the process work itself. Maybe diving in balls deep is the best way but currently ‘dying’ doesn’t outway my desire of Truth. How can I convince my entire being that it is already dead? that “I” never existed in the first place. @JustinS I want to fucking double down, but it goes against my entire being. I litteraly have no control over it. There is just an automatic backing down.

Wise words man Thank you, I will give this a shot!

I want to become a sage even though I probably don’t even fully grasp what that means. Have been contemplating it for some time now and it is really something I want to do with my life. To master being human and transform everything is highly interesting to me. But as for a life purpose, I’m still very lost. I will go and explore my interests and take Leo’s life purpose course after I save money for a couple of months. Because of school, my income is pretty low. @Joseph Maynor I don’t know why I quit cold turkey. It just felt really right. I still sometimes play a puzzle game or something like that once or twice per month, but putting all those hours I previously spent in cs towards reading and contemplating feels really good. @smd

How have you dealt with the incredible existential fear that comes with recognising you don’t exist? I’ve had a couple experiences now where I stopped being able to ‘find myself’ any longer, which really triggered immense fear and got my heartrate up to such a high number it hurt in my chest. @Leo Gura

@ajasatya Something that has challenge. I wanted to prove myself (this probably has to do with my self-image ), climbing my way up the ladder of skill in counter strike was very satisfying because you could literally see yourself growing and getting to a higher skill ceiling. Facing difficult opponents that were better than you. This is what made it so exciting for me

@Shroomdoctor Nope. I am saving money for it. Right now it's quite expensive for me.

@The White Belt I wanted to put more time into developing myself, I did not have enough time before because I spent the entire evening playing. So I opened up the evenings. Now I have more time to self-inquire, contemplate, and read

@ajasatya Interesting. Ye, I know nobody can tell me this.. I just feel uncertain and I don't know in which places to look.

@Ocean Ye, I'm already reading The Book of Now Knowing. It's extraordinary for sure. Best book I've read on enlightenment so far.

@The White Belt Well I’ve made my pick Also, of course I wouldn’t attack you for that, you helped me become aware of something going on that I couldn’t see myself. I should thank you @Ocean I was actually already quite intersted in that book, what are the main principles you learn in it?

Ye that's a big one, seeking validation is still one of my weak points. I have to go find my life purpose and care less about other peoples opinions and validations on it. Still though, I was interested if wanting to build muscle could actually be an authentic desire.

@Alien I have these sessions too, where these questions are being asked mechanically. It can be really frustrating sometimes. So what's important to do is first get in touch with this feeling of self you have. Where does I reside? What is actually 'you' in your direct experience? Then when you have this feeling- or thought, label, etc-- start inquiring and asking questions. Are you really me? Am I only a mental image? Am I only a sensation? Go on like this. Keep focus on this 'I' feeling and bring yourself back every time you go into monkey-mind. Watch Leo's video on how to get enlightened if you haven't already, it helped me a ton with this issue.

@Shiva hahah, well you’re right there. I will just do what I’m drawn to I suppose. If I find out at some point that this what I’m doing is all meaningless and illusory, it might even be a good thing, because the neurotic desire gets purged and I will feel more authentic afterwards.