Emerald

I'm right there with you. In fact, when Leo was talking about making major structural changes to his life and his reservations about quitting Actualized.org. I was like "Just Go! Do it now before you have a kid. The only person's life you have to fuck up is your own. Be radical!" But I know this feeling very well. I've considered leaving my husband before too. But the problem isn't him and isn't the limitation. It's lack of acceptance. It's my wishing reality were something other than what it is. It's the contant crazy-making thoughts of trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. I have no advice to give. Personally, I have decided to remain settled in my situation, and do personal development here and there until my children are old enough to care for themselves. If I had no kids, I'd be doing a ton of meditation retreats and nothing more. But the good news is that I'll be empty-nesting in my early 40's, so then I will do whatever I want and not waste a second of my time. But until them, I am going to try to accept my limiting role as wife and mother, while slowly growing myself a little every day.

My experiences tell me that is true.

@werlightThank you.

I was thinking about using this for cultivating acceptance. Thanks.

This is exactly what I needed. Thank you.

My favorite thing is being very intuitive and being able to express that intuition through action taken through the J function. I like the enigmatic nature of the INF aspects but the ability to express through the J function. My least favorite thing is getting caught up in the internal world and having few people to relate to because they don't share the same zeal for contemplation and inner exploration.

@Natasha Thank you.

To give the usual enlightenment spiel, there is no reason because reason only exists within the confines of the human experience. To try to rationalize a reason for it just a rationalization. It will be a barrier to enlightenment. But on the level, I have guess. I don't know one way or another. But I have a guess. I think the emptiness is tricking itself into believing that it is a person, so that it can experience what it is like to be finite and mortal. The only way for the infinite to understand the finite is to manifest itself as a sentient being. Many religions describe 'God' as all-knowing. I see no other way to know other than to experience something firsthand. Again, I don't know. Totally don't listen. It is only a thought story and a rationalization. Don't let it distract you.

I was doing Strong Determination sits for a little while. I would do them for an hour at a time. Shinzen Young described them as being similar to being in labor, and (being a mother of two) I can totally see the correlation emotional intensity-wise and cycle-wise. The thing that it revealed to me is how my thoughts "scream" urges at me to stop doing what I'm doing. It's not me who wants to stop but my subtler thoughts are imploring me and 'yelling' at me to change positions. But then focusing on the sensation and becoming aware of the thought makes it clear that pain is just another phenomenon within the field of awareness. Separating the pain, the emotions, and the thoughts is necessary to get through the process; so it really does make you more aware. Then there is a release. Then it comes again more intense and the process is repeated.

I'm an INFJ (really close on the J and P). There are definitely a lot of INFJs on here. There was a thread about the MBTI and like at least 20% of people identified as INFJ. I was really surprised, but no too surprised when I consider the target audience for Leo's videos.

I have heard of this before but it is beyond my scope of experience. Sadhguru said in one of his videos (it might even be this one) that there was a man who became enlightened who became obsessed with food. His wife was puzzled about how he could be enlightened but so crazy about food. He explained to her that it was the food that grounded him to his experience. So, without grounding methods, death would occur. But I don't know how true or untrue this is, but it sort of makes sense intuitively if you believe that enlightenment is the end of the rebirth cycle as is believed in Buddhism from the idea of freedom from Karma which was originally derived from Hinduism. I would imagine that if it were true, doing daily living activities could also work as a grounding practice. But these are only conjectures. I do know that there are many people who claim to be enlightened that aren't dead though.

Thank you. I get nervous about aging too. I've spent way too many thoughts thinking about it. But if I look at reality and not what I'm told about reality, the problem of aging really isn't as bad or as disparate as our society makes it out to be. It's not as though old men are total hunks and old women are total hags. Most older couples are pretty even. The way I see it is that, if there is a man who is the same age as me who rejects me simply on the basis that I'm too old for him, he probably wouldn't do much for me anyway. Pair bonding is the primary reason for sexual attractiveness anyway. The bigger problem is that we condition people to make sexual attractiveness the number one indicator of self-worth. It makes women fear being irrelevant once menopause hits. But keep in mind, women usually live for 20-30 more years after menopause, so biology and evolution must have some other reason than child-rearing and sexuality for keeping us around.

It's a little bit biological and a lot social. Because sex is primarily for baby making, it will evolutionarily depend on that. Men can still father children after 50 but women can't. Also, because the female body is the eco-system that grows babies, the physicality of a woman will be the primary attracting factor for men looking to reproduce. Men, on the other hand, have other factors that take the primary role (leadership, planning, etc.) But erectile disfunction and loss of physical strength, stamina, and virility also take its toll. But if I'm honest and look with my eyes to the 50+ crowd I find an equal amount of attractive and unattractive men and women. Most people really let themselves go. That said, there are still sexy women and men in their 40s and 50s. There are even a few in their 60s that are pretty hot. i.e. Susan Sarandon and Sophia Loren But the degree of value that society places upon sexual attractiveness is extreme "chimpery." The business paradigm exaggerates the degree to which men and women are different, so that people will pay money to fit the narrow roles they cast. So, they condition women into thinking that their primary importance is desirability and they condition men into thinking their value and power lies in their ability to land a hot woman. So, the pressure put on women is to keep maximum sexual desirability which peaks for women in their prime childbearing years (18-35). The younger on this scale is better for business because it is the hardest to maintain. This gives women the illusion that no on will value them when they get older, which creates an insecurity. Then they can sell to women based on this insecurity. So, people are given the impression that aging is okay for men but a death sentence for women. But here is my perception of male and female attractiveness. Women peak attractiveness range (18-35) - 23 most attractive Men peak attractiveness range (22-45) - 30 most attractive Percentage of men over the age of 50 who are still attractive= 10% Percentage of women over the age of 50 who are still attractive= 7% We all lose our charms in the end. Don't let big business talk you into thinking that men always age better or that no one will be interested in you after age 30.

Wisdom is the ever changing river that is always there. The degree of how wise a person is, is the degree to which that river flows into their consciousness unobstructed by beliefs, assumptions, thoughts, and other mental constructs. So, think of enlightenment as radical open-ness to that river. So, wisdom isn't a quality in a person. It is receptivity and open-ness that allows this wisdom river to effect a person. You have as little control over wisdom as a fish has control over the movement of the river that they swim in.

To give an analogy, think of wisdom like a river that starts in the unconscious mind and flows into the conscious mind. At the barrier between the conscious and unconscious mind, there is a dam (made up of false assumptions and beliefs about the self) that only lets some of the water from that wisdom river flow through. When a person becomes enlightened the dam opens up and the wisdom river flows through unobstructed. It isn't a perfect metaphor, but it's how it feels.

This metaphor is very helpful in the sense that it really illustrates the way enlightenment feels. However, some of the logistics of enlightenment are a bit different. Understand that you will continue to perceive sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, and thought in the same way that you always have. You won't confuse the thing you think of as "your" body to be all of existence. Rather, you will notice that the true self is the empty container for all these perceptions an the content of those perceptions only in the present moment. However, you won't be getting mislead by the content of these perceptions anymore. So, you will see that the thing you think of as "I" is only in the content of a thought. The mental image you think of as yourself is only the content of a thought. The only thing that is "real" is your perceptions that are occurring in the present moment before any concepts are placed on top of them. So, you can remember back to a time when you used to think you were a concept, a visual image, or a collection of ideas. But you will see clearly that you are not.

I see. That makes sense. I was just giving a sort of cautionary tale against thinking having a kind personality would yield enlightenment. Many people fall into the trap of thinking that they're free of ego because they are a kind and altruistic. But the ego can be sneaky and unconsciously hi-jack motivations.

Yes. Absolutely. The intellect isn't effected by enlightenment. So, all of your intelligence is maintained. You just demote the intellect to its proper place as a tool. The intellect is not the self. Part of enlightenment is realizing that you aren't your thoughts.

A person doesn't lose the ability for intellectual thinking when they become enlightened, any more than they lose their sense of sight. It is just that they realize that they aren't the one who owns the thoughts, they aren't the one who controls the thought, and that they are not the thoughts themselves. Intellectual thinking is just a faculty of the human lens just like the sensory abilities of the five senses. No abilities are lost when enlightenment is reached, only your perceived relationship to them.

Thank you. :) My thoughts are always doing the same thing, getting me to react particular ways to derail my progress toward unraveling the illusion of ego.

I think being nice and compassionate to others is great. I choose to live my life this way. I wouldn't want to live any other way. That said, being nice is one of the egos FAVORITE ways to hide and sustain itself. The ego is very self-congratulatory, and spins tons of stories about how '"I'M" such a good person." "If only everyone in the world were as nice as "ME." "'I' give way too much to others." etc... You CANNOT reach enlightenment simply by deciding to do good deeds. It gets the cart before the horse. Become enlightened and your niceness will be without the agenda of ego. Until then, everything is infected by the egoic agenda. And I do mean Everything. Until then, continue doing good things. It's better for you and everyone else. But it won't get you to enlightenment.

The way to do this is to get really present to the difference between a mode of perception and the content within that perception. So, all that you sense are the 5 senses (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell) and thought. In each of these six dimensions of experience there is content. So, in your field of sight, you may be seeing yourself in the mirror, a friend, a tree, or some other thing. But become aware of the fact that your sight can be boiled down to content on a flat surface. If you have a picture and notion of how your friends are in your head, understand that this is the content of a thought. Don't get caught up in content. Also, break the illusion that there is a connection between each mode of perception. So, sight and touch may not have anything to do with one another despite the fact that you're used to linking them to navigate your way through the world. Also, become present to the fact that your past and future are all figments of your imagination. You don't even know if they actually correspond to a past reality. You don't know if they're just memory implants or some such. So, the only thing that is actually real to you in your present experience are the content in your field of awareness relating to the 5 senses and thought. So, that leaves you with awareness itself, instead of your thoughts about what is real. Awareness itself is the empty space that your perceptions and thoughts happen within. So, your comment is still stuck within the content of your perception of thought. If you back away from your attachment to these thoughts, you can see that all this content of thought springs from nowhere.

It's a lot like a Jenga Tower. When you take out the core Jenga blocks, all the Jenga blocks above it fall away.

-I'm making great progress toward becoming enlightened. -If I am more reasonable, smart, or informed than someone else, my viewpoints are superior... No, because I understand the nature of paradoxes... So, no viewpoints are superior... So, I'm not superior in any way... Realizing this is superior to not realizing this... Gosh I'm so aware... Damnit... No.... Gah!!! -I can't get my life under control -I'm not lazy -If only my life situation were more stable, I'd be happy

The ego is the content of a thought that all other beliefs and assumptions are centered around. It is nothing more than the core false assumption on which all other assumptions are based. So, the ego only exists as the content of a thought. An emotion on the other hand is the sensation that springs into your awareness in response to a thought. So, you can have an emotional response in relation to the thoughts of ego and the ones built off of it. But emotions themselves are not the result of ego.