Max_V

@jimrich Thanks for the advise. Currently I'm waiting for a reply to start psychotherapy. I'm really hoping this will help me.

@jimrich But whenever these feelings come up during meditation or in my daily life ( I feel them the most intense when I meditate) I become so incredibly scared. It just feels too painful, I can't come up with anything I should do at these moments. My mind just goes " This is bad... This is real bad, keep this up and another panic attack starts. Your heart wil start with palpilations again" I know I'm not my thoughts, but they sounds so clearly and robust in my head. Like they're made of metal. I just lose it completely at that point. I try to watch them. But I still feel wrapped up inside of them. So it feels so wrong

@Alii Why so rude?

@Toby Thanks for the recommendations, I will definitely consider buying these

@S33K3R Mhh that sounds like something paradoxical, which is basicly everything on the path so it must be right . I do fear feeling fear though so this is going to be quite difficult.

@Truth Thanks a lot, I will start doing these exercises. I just did the enquiry part and turns out I'm afraid to be alone. I traced being scared of dying back to this. So now I've got some solid work to do @Toby Thanks I will add this to my contemplation sessions . Edit: Something I just realized is that when I ask myself what does fear consists of. I get the answer " An uncomfortable feeling in my stomach and a lot of negative thoughts that make that feeling feel worse" @Toby

Thank you, beautiful illustration

I think when a loved one is terminally ill, there will always be a feeling of sadness. The difference between someone enlightened is that he is not identified with the emotion. He is aware of this emotion but still feels the deep underlying peace of being. It is never easy when something like this happens, my wishes to you. I hope that your loved one finds peace.

@Danielle Ye for some reason it makes me pretty emotional. I will not see a lot of the people I had good relationship with anymore. I will miss my teachers and my good friends, all the times having fun, walking around through the school. Hard for me to let go of these things.

So that just happened, I graduated highschool with amazing results for my exams. Before I started actualizing, meditating, etc. I would be so incredibly happy and excited. Now I just feel nothing, I feel some slight relief but it doesn't really mean anything to me. I don't know if I should see this as a good sign-- I don't get fulfilled by materialistic things anymore-- or as a negative things since it feels like my emotions are not as explosive and grand anymore Anyway to sum it up, I find this reaction from myself pretty weird. I have this culture that is telling me this is something amazing, that should make me really happy. But it doesn't really touch me as like a high meditative state does or being in nature. It feels plain and shallow

@Alii You might be right. I feel sad and alone and I wanted some people to listen to what I had to say. My bad for making this into a nee thread

This is hard, for me too. People say that when you recognize the ultimate truth you. see life more as a game to be played. Something to have fun with. So my guess is, as your awareness grows, so does your ability to feel peace and joy. Which automaticly makes you look at everything less serious and makes you see the peace and joy underlying every situation.

So yesterday I did my first contemplation session. The question I was asking myself was "What is fear?" I noticed during this session that I wanted to ask myself a lot of different questions "How does fear arise?", "What can you do to stop fear from ever entering your system?" , etc Are there basic questions I should keep using for every topic, or is it not bad to ask any question I come up with. Thanks for helping everyone

@Christian Alright thanks, this will help me get started.

@Christian Alright, so when doing "What is fear?" It is best to focus on that one question for the entirety of the 15 min session?

Notice, even when your mind is having a thought diarrhea, awareness is there. How could you recognize that you are having these thoughts if it weren't for awareness? Awareness is always available, even when your mind is jumping up and down and screaming. You just have to ask yourself "Who or what is aware of these thoughts?" If you want more information on this, check out a couple of Rupert Spira's videos. In my opinion he explains it very clear and easy

Mhh, as an aggressor you have this approach of 'hurting them before they can hurt me'. Which makes you think that the aggressor himself has been through very painful times in his life. Hurting someone before they can hurt you, or hurting first, is a way of trying to protect yourself from feeling pain. So one big characteristic of an aggressor is someone who has been hurt and tries to protect him/herself from it ever happening again.

I don't know, don't really think about it as something 'I have to accomplish '. I just do the exercises and read about it because it really interests me haha

No one is a capricorn

Thanks for sharing all this, very interesting! I'm want to get to your stage too at some point. Is self inquiry you would say very important? I've only been meditating and reading books untill now. I am doing exercises from 'The Book Of Not Knowing' and a lot of it points to contemplation and self inquiry so it must be something worth looking into

When I finish high school I want to get into Psychology. It doesn't have the spiritual and several other aspects in it that personal development offers but it is still a step into the direction of helping others. This makes me really happy. Helping people with poor self esteem, a chaotic mind, etc. If I know how to help them and see that it makes changes, for me almost nothing will be more fulfilling than helping people in that way.

Well I like about every type of music but uplifting metalcore is something that really makes me motivated and almost emotional. Some of the artists I listen too talk about spirituality, improving yourself and growing. Erra and Northlane are my favorite bands This is my favorite song

Well there are two fundamental things you can do on your own. Meditation and reading books/researching. Meditation is something really important in my opinion since it helps you grow in about every area of your life Reading books/researching the parts of personal development you are interested in, is something that you do on your own. It gives you information on how things work and exercises on how to improve.

Well, in my experience, the only thing you can do with those thoughts is not react, fight or attach yourself to them. "With your mind, all the three pedals are throttles; there are no brakes and no clutch. Have you noticed this? Whatever pedal you hit, the mind only accelerates its speed. But if you don’t pay any attention to it, thoughts will slowly subside, leaving you in a rich and vibrant silence" - Sadhguru You can't control your thoughts, that will only make it worse. If you simply accept your thoughts and create space between thoughts and 'the one that is aware of the thoughts' you will be free. Ask yourself this when your thoughts go absolutely crazy: "Who or what is aware of these thoughts?" This will make you do a 180 and focus on the awareness rather than the object. I hope I helped you with this a little, I'm still learning trying to improve myself on this topic too, it's a hard road Best of luck to you m8

At my local Zendo there is a strong believe that enlightenment is something impossible. I asked the question to my master there and he said "Enlightenment is something we don't really want to talk about here. It is almost impossible to attain enlightenment so we don't want to give people the wrong idea. And even if you do get enlightened, you leave behind everything and can't lead a normal life anymore." Is this something that's wrong? Should I do anything about this?