kieranperez

Read Jung and some solid psychoanalysts. Integrallife.com also has some stuff on dreamwork too. Try that nootropic Leo suggested btw that increases dream clarity as well.

I also don’t have my car anymore since a guy t-boned my car (and of course Geico dropped my claim all because he didn’t answer his phone) and buses up to those free Dhamma Vipassana Centers are like $200 round trip via Greyhound buses. I also get yelled at for doing anything that involves taking a break from the stresses of life because “I don’t deserve it.”

Everything you believe or “know” about enlightenment, so long as you’ve never “experienced it”, is bullshit

Then you’re not going to build self-esteem. It’s that simple. If you wanna repeat affirmations and lie to yourself and create a fassade of self-esteem, go right ahead. Real self-esteem is built out in the world, not by you living in a fantasy bubble visualizing and brainwashing yourself more and lying to yourself. I know this through experience. There is no shortcut to this stuff. Self esteem exercises through things like journaling and stuff are support systems that enhance personal growth as like a little boost to supplement the work you do out in the world. Stop looking for shortcuts. They are a waste of time. Trust me on this. I also agree with @Joseph Maynor however, depending where you are, you’ll need to do some real healthy ego work. Truth is the answer to all your depressing problems in life at the end of the day but that doesn’t just necessarily mean sitting on a cushion all day doing enlightenment work. That also entails being honest ALL THE TIME and never letting up. It entails taking action and doing the emotionally difficult thing and persisting through that. It may mean taking psychedelics and having a horrifying trip and see all the trauama and suffering you’ve been projecting and then integrating all of that through say shadow work and dream work. It entails being more compassionate and loving and stop being a selfish bastard by taking your problems so seriously and personally.

You operate in this illusion. Take ownership. Participate. This selfish oriented “my vote doesn’t matter” or “it’s all fixed” mentality shows an utter LACK of consciousness. Christ didn’t sit passively on the sideline. Gandhi didn’t say “ah what’s the point.” No there is no moral obligation. However, it does show show self absorbtion and ego if you don’t. You’re in no position to complain about and judge those on the Spiral Dynamics model and all the shenanigans that are going on if you just sit on your ass. Get out and vote.

@Sahil Pandit

More selfish egos who don’t give a fuck who think spirituality is the cure, use metaphysical concepts just to dismiss the things you can do. Don’t cricitize others on the Spiral when you do nothing about it. Leo votes in yet calls out because guess what, you sitting passively on the sidelines like the spiritual snob you are doesn’t help anyone. You are making so many assumptions and projections with this post

The majority of great sages of history had to learn from nondual spiritual texts/books. Unless you're working with a guru/teacher/master, you're not going have enough. Buddha learned from others for several years before he went out on his own. Chris had John The Baptist. Yogis have their gurus or yogic texts. Adyashanti had his Zen teacher and even read Christian mysticism during that period of time.

@RichardY I don’t know what you mean by that. Any action you take towards any kind of change, personal or collective, requires force. In the beginning when you meditate you have to force it. Change requires force of some kind or another. That’s the way it goes.

You are programmed with inauthentic desires, dreams, cravings by culture just like a computer is conditioned by cookies on a website.

Do the practice and it will stop seeming vague.

Man if you develop supreme concentration on that question (like you would for a koan), that can really take you deep. That’s why I feel concentration practice is so important in the early years of meditation because of how easy it is to slip into other questions. Contemplative meditation on a question requires such supreme concentration to keep the devil from seducing the mind into other questions just for the sake of distraction. Obviously this is all metaphorical.

I’m honestly so depressed I can’t even think or vision about what I really want as a life purpose at this point. I sit around at home all day miserable and depressed and just in tears because I don’t know what I want anymore at all. I try doing these life purpose exercises more and more and I haven’t been getting anywhere. I can’t give a concrete answer to anything. All my passions have fallen away and I just don’t know what to do. On the one hand I intuit what pursuing enlightenment and all that can really do for my life but I also know what enlightenment won’t do for my life. For example: what would actually change if I got a full enlightenment right now? Nothing in terms of circumstances, money, skills, a living situation that suits me, etc. I’d still be the 23 year old loser living at home with family members who look down on him and no friends. I even feel ashamed to meditate. I feel so useless and depressed that I don’t have enough emotional reserves to start a business. I’m not saying I don’t think I can’t ever. I’m saying right now. I literally wake up with no reason to get up in the morning at all. I NEVER thought I wouldn’t hit this point. I’ve been an athlete all my life and once the passion and “my why” really ran dry, that was it. I just didn’t understand why I’d keep doing this. This mental predicament right now is this: I don’t know what I want. I keep asking myself, introspecting, and I just don’t know. I feel worse at then end and just cry because my life feels dry because I feel like this is something I can’t turn around now because now I have to go off and earn something and work at something stupid, waste all this emotional energy doing something I hate, working for someone I hate, for a bullshit cause. I feel like if I accept this, slap the handcuffs on, I’m going to end up getting swept into this current. I don’t want to get swept up in that but I also don’t know what I want. I feel like I’m stuck in this catch 22 and I really don’t know what to do. I know the lifestyle I want to live right now which would resemble a lot of stage green and really spend time truly soul searching and gaining more life experience, driving across the country in a camper van, go to other countries, camping, spending time in true isolation in the woods, living really really simply in a tent. Advice?

http://oshoworld.com/e-books/eng_discourses.asp?page_id=1

@Jedd I've definitely thought about it for sure. Key advice right there ^ Just add onto it: really emphasize authenticity. You're going to feel a lot better and also get farther in your own development if you do so in an honest, truthful, and authentic way. Also: Don't feel the need to share every bit of your personal life and self. I think YouTubers make both a good but misleading (through no fault of their own) example. Good examples of this are actually people like @Leo Gura, Casey Neistat, Gary Vaynerchuk, etc. - You don't need to share every detail about your life nor do I think it'd be wise to. Bring the real you but people don't need to know every single thing. Understand for example that you really don't know anything about Leo personally. However, that doesn't mean he can't be authentic and real with us as his audience. We just tend to assume we know more about the people we're watching than we actually do. If you're going to do this through video I suggest practice filmmaking and learn about it. Learn about camera angles, storytelling, learn how to be creative. Remember it is about you in this and your journey but you need to appeal to the people who are going to put up watching you. Practice that for awhile.

Imagine if Christ or Buddha said ‘there’s no point. Suffering is going to happen no matter what.’

is that movie in spanish? I don't speak it haha cause I'm looking it up now

Don’t know what you could possibly be “enraged” about my post Are you asking what do I with my time that I feel deeply fulfilled by where time just feels like it flies by? I can’t understand based on the way you’re writing

How am I supposed to travel, self-educate with no money? Plane tickets, places to stay, other travel expenditures and books, courses, etc. don’t pay for themselves. And where do you suggest one goes once they’re done traveling? Just show up back home with still no basic plan of action? I don’t understand your answer. I’ll check it out

“Peter’s Road To Enlightenment”

What’s body load?

You realize I’m agreeing with you right? Lol