Viking

I had 3 types of days. One type is tough, second is fearful, third is painfully sad. The first days were painfully sad, as i meditated the mind cleared and for no reason i cried for hours total, it was even painful, the sadness. Next on day 5 to 7 were fear days, i started to experience LSD like thought patterns, thought i was going psychotic and because of that tons of fear arose with surrender to it. next were the tough days (although every day was tough) but as u get to the end u want to go home already and you start counting days and sitting becomes very tough.

Don't have any expectations. I say that but you probably already have some expectations, since you're going to the retreat. Let me ruin them for you- most people i know including me who did the retreat didn't get much out of it. It's a really low chance anything transforming will happen there. it will be a different and new experience though, and you will probably learn about yourself, but you probably wont get any "glimpses" or anything like that. Now with those expectations do the retreat full force

I think advice like that won't work because to actually use the advice successfully a lot of previous experience and practice are needed, as well as in depth knowledge and implications of the advice, like a book would give. A few lines in a post will do very little probably.

I feel like you progressed too much too fast and you're having a major ego backlash. this is what happens when you start doing advanced techniques like self inquiry and kriya yoga without proper balance. I would advise to stop with the kriya yoga and the self inquiry. change it to breath awareness or any relaxing meditation of the sort. hang around more frequently with people if you're isolated. it will pass in a few weeks. start the serious practices after a few more years of balance building.

does it happen out of the blue or as a reaction to specific events in your life? for how long do you experience it? what spiritual practices do you do?

Take a trip with me for a sec- Persistent happiness is being content with the present moment. You get it through 2 ways: Meaning- living for other people, spiritual experiences, Being, virtues, relationships... Not resisting the present moment at all, in other words getting rid of all of your samskaras, purifying your soul so no resistance is left, full enlightenment as the buddha achieved. I think meaning just allows the brain to stop worrying that the present moment is good enough, which means it is good enough for now. Obviously the second option is nearly impossible and insanely hard, i think unachievable if you lead a usual western lifestyle, hence only the first option remains. notice- in the second option I include all the spirituality that youre doing- love, unity, relationships, whatever.. it is NOT the second option. 99.9% of happy people are happy because of the first option. now here comes my trap (i think its a trap): For there to be meaning for me that holds up and makes me happy, i have to be sure that the meaning is true 100%, otherwise, even if i slightly doubt it, the whole meaning goes out the window. I say that because even with a slight doubt, in the back of my mind I will feel that it's not enough, hence no happiness for me. The thing is that I cant ever be sure that the meaning is true 100%. Every meaning is a creation of our mind, because different people have different meanings, and stuff that you interpret a certain way for example animals may interpret a certain other way (see Leo's video on what is meaning). Therefore objective meaning is an oxymoron. Now, there is no objective meaning, but the meaning that i feel subjectively can be true, right? its there, I experience it. At the end of the day, the perspective that "everything is meaningless" is just a perspective, its not The perspective, theres no such thing as the perspective, so theoretically I could just go on with my life with the perspective in which I feel meaning, hence im happy, everything is cool. Personally I cant do that. Me knowing that the perspective I hold isnt the perspective, and that I know there are other perspectives equally valid doesnt let me believe that the meaning is 100% true, hence i cant be happy. at all. except if i go live in a cave for a few years and go the second way of getting rid of samskaras. basically im fucked. I guess im not THAT fucked, i can to some extent not resist the present moment due to meditations. i can also feel meaning sometimes when i forget that meaning is false or not absolute. but the lack of satisfaction comes back. I hope you understood what i wrote, I tried to be articulate. help P.S. what i wrote right now actually implies, that not love, not helping people, not knowing everything is one will make me happy. The only thing that will make me happy is to stop resisting the cruel meaninglessness of my existence. (thinking that meaninglessness is meaningful is a samskara and takes full enlightenment to get rid of, I think) P.P.S Maybe there is a better way to stop all resistance except buddha-like meditation, like gaining wisdom through studying combined with meditation, kriya yoga maybe, idfk, but meaning is NOT a way out. P.P.P.S I guess love and all that stuff is just a side effect and not the point.

but practically in order to realize that "im ok" i have to set it as a goal, otherwise i will just be as clueless and suffering as everyone around me. i have to "try" to be conscious and accept the present moment as it is. i think to really be liberated i need to first realize, become conscious, of jus how much meaningless existence is, and then accept it. if i wont, ill just stay where i am now.

i dont want to be free of this, i want to not experience daily meaninglessness and emptiness. i dont even control or induce the emptiness, its just there as a result of going a bit deep. even if i accept it in the moment, it comes back later.

but how will i look for meaningless if i wont seek liberation? i need first, in my life, find out whats my north star, you know what im saying? without the north star, which for me is happiness, which is seeking liberation, im just wandering around aimlessly in the darkness.

like i mentioned in the post, being happy (being satisfied with the present moment) constantly, due to seeing life as meaningful (option 1) and not due to dropping all resistance to life (option 2)

yeah thats what im saying, therefore u cant be consistently happy off meaning

im not sure whether to do spirituality right now or later. im very young, 20 years old, inexperienced and naive. im not sure i can handle spirituality right now. i think i need to build up my emotional intelligence and grow up a bit first. what leads me to thinking that is the following: I did a vipassana retreat and it was too overwhelming. tons of fear and anxiety. I did LSD-25 and i was very deluded the next few weeks as a result. i believe too automatically in my thoughts. When i dont ejaculate for more than 2 weeks im starting to experience transformations of consciousness and energetic movements which are too much for me. kriya yoga and various meditations are way too much for me, im on the edge of having panic attacks (i always manage to control them, so they dont manifest) basically, if i dive into spirituality right now ill get deluded, detached, depressed and go insane. also for now my philosophy is not solid, i dont think spirituality is necessarily better than connection to people, attachment and meaning. maybe its a combination, i dont know, i didnt experience enough of the world to know. what i do now is work on my relationships and career, with some wim hof and casual concentration meditations. am i bulshitting myself here? avoiding something? will i go crazy if i go into spirituality? i know people have gone insane and deluded from this. i've met a lot of people who are very deluded because the did spirituality prematurely. in order to study the kaballah you need to be 40 years old first.

yeah, i there was one in my country a few months ago but it was insanely expensive. currently there are no signs of the course happening again in my country anytime soon. but if i visit europe maybe ill try to find a country which does annual courses.

i think that's moderation, but in order to really advance one needs to do more than moderation i think

lol i just said that i do spirituality in moderation yeah i just did 2 tests and apparently in both of them im vata. i dont live in a super high building. what would you consider grounding? @Nahm i dont know. usually i doubt myself though.

i am meditating, journaling, doing wim hof/shamanic breathing and stuff. i just dont read spirituality, I masturbate, and dont do over the top spirituality like psychedelics and intensive meditation retreats.

i am very conscious of what i eat. sometimes addiction gets the best of me but generally im good. i am also conscious of what i think, i usually notice negative thoughts immediately. i also started to notice which thoughts make me depressed and im trying to turn them around as you taught me. though i dont always manage to. @Salvijus haha yeah i know where you're leading me good summation of what i need, i agree that the balance foundation is what i seek. ill head to india for inner engineering as soon as im able to. for now i dont know how to balance myself. journaling and acceptance helps, but i already plan to read books about it after i finish books about big picture stuff like happiness.

you will die one day but its all happening now, isnt it? dont you feel the meaning right now? does this meaningless really exist or is this what your mind imagined while thinking about the end? life is both meaningless and meaningful, yin and yang. life happens to you right now, and yet you will die. its not one or the other, its both, its a flow from one to another. life sometimes is meaningful and sometimes meaningless, and if you get stuck in one side you will suffer. be like water.

lesser jihad...

@see_on_see thats the most useful answer i got, thank you

This topic is about making yourself pursue the things you want to pursue. Whether it's going to the gym, reading books, doing self development generally, any stuff that generally requires you getting out of your comfort zone, investing emotional labor. The question is: Does creating goals and going towards them really has to take willpower and forcing yourself? it seems to me like there's a more wise way, but im not sure. If resistance arises couldnt you just be mindful of that resistance, let go, and just do what needs to be done? without any motivation or balls to the wall, willpower approach? Most Orange success oriented self help advice says to force yourself, I think the pinnacle of that is Mel Robbins, like in this video : "Just 5 4 3 2 1 suck it up and do it". I cant pinpoint what's wrong with it, but it feels unnatural and like there's a better way. Also this advice doesnt always work with me, they say that "if you start in 10 minutes you suddenly do feel like it" but sometimes even a few hours of work later i feel like i have to push myself all the time and its just miserable. I dont want to live my life in misery, why would I try to improve myself constantly if the process is miserable. the process is my whole life, and its the good life im after. Maybe the solution to this problem is that yes, there will always be misery when pushing yourself outside your comfort zone, but you could embrace the suffering, I guess that takes enlightenment though, idk. what do you think? Do you feel resistance and suffering always when pursuing goals or grinding?

i revisited this topic because i didnt solve the problem. so what youre saying is that in order to do something without resistance i have to be enlightened??? i really really desire reading books but it a lot of the time i just dont feel like it

im planning tomorrow to do a 2 day meditation retreat. im not sure how to go about doing it, i did a 10 day vipassana course but i dont want to do vipassana. i also dont have goals for this meditation retreat, is it ok? can i just meditate? i also want to add some contemplation and journaling time as i also want to use the clarity that meditation gives to get insights about myself. im not sure what kind of meditation i should do, and whether i should stick to a single meditation technique or go with a few different ones. what has worked for you and how should i go about this? edit: i guess the reason for my asking is that i fear i will get insanely bored and start getting restless, which will probably happen, and i dont know how to deal with that. i fear ill stop the retreat in the middle and start watching Netflix

I want to start drinking a cup of coffee every day, once a day in the morning. I heared it can boost dopamine and serotonin and im slightly depressed so that might help. also heared though that coffee damages teeth, makes the mouth smell bad, and eventually my body will just get used to the coffee and it wont have any effect. im not sure though if my body will get used to the coffee if i drink just once a day. what are your thoughts?

i tried it during the vipassana retreat and it kinda worked, but it became insanely hard as the resistance continued to reappear