DocHoliday

@Aakash In "Spiritual Enlightenment" (his book) JedMcKenna says that fear is what has been added to the mix to keep things interesting or worthwhile. Makes total sense, because fear, or resistance, causes conflict. If there wasn't any conflict whatsoever, why would you even keep on living?

@Consept Well said Edit I guess we could then say that fear is simply a stronger version of resistance. Resistance can exist without fear - but there can never be fear without resistance. Therefore, fear seems to be the more intense version of resistance to which we attach a more critical emotional value. For example, if you wanted me to pick something up from the ground, I could simply say No and resist that demand of yours without any greater emotional investment attached to it. But if you suddenly say "I will take away your money, your house, your status, your safety or your life if you won't do it", then, I might suddenly get afraid. Aww, nice.

Funny, I experienced this as well. Really freaked me out for a while and I also constantly had to ckeck my pulse whenever I couldn't directly feel it anymore. But after a while I just figured "Well, I'm still here, so it must be still working and I'll probably notice it whenever it shouldn't be the case". (slightly morbid perhaps) But you're fine, it really seems to just be a certain phase. But it's certainly good advice to use it as an opportunity to truly come in contact with physical mortality and stuff...

@Serotoninluv Yeah, no, absolutely not. Don't be a stone-Buddha Freedom and peace could only ever come through non-resistance. It's like wanting to craft something remarkably beautiful, but refusing to work with all the materials necessary to craft it. I mean, if I want to bake myself a cake, I'll most certainly have to work with flour - I can't reject it. And even beyond that, the more I concern myself with flour, its texture, its purity, all its differnt kinds of origin and how it reacts with other ingredients, the better the cake will be in the end.

@Serotoninluv ♥️ ?

@Shin Indeed, trying to get rid of fear by distancing yourself from it is inherently still based upon fear. Namely the fear not to feel or face fear. But exactly in facing fears and transforming them we get "rid of them". Total embrace and confrontation. So, you see, one can still change himself, of course. Would be stupid not to. If there's something significantly limiting in you or your behaviour respecitvely that you want to change, then by any means, go for it. The key is to first accept yourself and everything around you as it is, to fully let it in. Only then true change can happen, or else, everything else is only surface-level bandaging. Because, what it fundamentally comes down to is, that everything we're afraid of or opposed to (accept as ourself) is nothing else but the the fear of No-Self. And of course, as you and many others surely know, really truly deeply honestly earnestly going for No-Self is, or can be, extremely fucking scary. And this very fear of no-self is the ultimate fear that we're usually trying to distance ourselves from rather than letting it in and embracing it. That's the fear so many people are afraid of to look in the eye and thus, try to "get rid of" by every other means imaginable.

@Serotoninluv Oh, okay, well now I get where you're coming from. Sure thing:)

@Serotoninluv Yeah, sure, once fear can be embraced and transformed, practically speaking it would, in fact, "no longer be there". But it would still exist. Perhaps then not for you anymore, but that doesn't mean that it's generally, universally eradicated.

@Serotoninluv That's a weird question. Of course it exists because you've mentioned it in your question Whether or not resistence is there, fear itself would still be there - you just don't resist it. EDIT: It's kinda like asking "If you don't experience any problems eating things that contain wheat, does wheat still exist?"

@positivevibes This post was not intended as a "cry for help", but I appreciate the reply

It’s not really about “destiny.” It’s the foxe’s nature to kill mice. But for humans it’s a different kind of story. See, for the fox it is inherently necessary for his survival, for humans in many cases not as much. It’s about consciousness and choices based on it.

Of course, the mere act of eating meat is perfectly fine. There’s nothing more or less wrong with it than it is right or correct. Where it gets interesting though is the killing part of it. If you were sufficiently conscious and had to kill an animal yourself... that shit is hard. Because you see yourself in every animal or even insect for that matter. It would still be possible, certainly, but the way you’d feel about such an act simply changes so drastically. Every animal, insect or plant that you kill could have just as well been you, or your body respectively in its place. Of course, at a certain level death itself becomes a non-issue but nonetheless, if you don’t yet necessarily have to leave your body, you wouldn’t want to do that. Therefore, in the same way, you wouldn’t want to end any other being’s existence prematurely if it simply wouldn’t be inherently necessary.

Never not do anything just because you think you ought not to do it. If you enjoy doing certain things, then do ‘em. But if you wish to better yourself by discarding certain tendencies (which seems to be the case here I suppose) then simply observe yourself while you’re doing whatever you don’t want to do anymore and notice with awareness how it hurts you or others around you. If it's a true problem for you, then Albert Einstein will help you by stating that “Any problem cannot be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.”

This is somehwhat bothering me for quite some time now... I find it very hard to be authentic whenever I meet new people or have to deal with anybody in particular in public social situations. I'm always in conflict to put on a social mask of a kind of personality that I know and feel people to like much more, instead of being authentic with them. Whenever I actually am authentic, people always take it the wrong way as they're not used to- or comfortable around a person that is basically a non-person without much ego at all. Obviously it feels way better to be able to be authentic on my part but I can definitely feel it off of the other person(s) I am interacting with that they're always "weirded out" by that. In most cases it is also quite noticeable that when there is more room to breathe for the other person's ego, they are generally glad to use it, and therefore assume that I'm weak or socially beneath them. Of course I don't let them run all over me in those situations, but nonetheless it makes me feel uncomfortable to put up that facade of some persona time and time again only to get by in any kind of social situations and to get a favourable outcome/standing with people so that one can still get what he wants/needs. In other words: playing the social game has gotten very old and tiresome and I can't stand doing it. But, since there is a certain necessity to do so, that is what gives rise to the constant conflict on my part. So, does anyone have some good thoughts or tips on this? Perhaps some of you have noticed to struggle with the same thing.

I've heard that there's a guy out there, somehwere, with a very similar name to yours. You should go check him out, he's pretty cool.

@Salvijus True

@moon777light To keep it short and simple, it essentially just comes down to reclaiming full responsibility and full power over yourself that you would have otherwise given away. Authenticity isn't in need of any confirmation or reaffirmation from the outside or other people. Authenticity is absolutely self-sufficient. I was reminded of that experientially when I met a good friend of mine today whom I haven't seen in a long time:) Our conversation then brought forth again that careless and beautiful authenticity. After our conversation had ended I then simply thought to myself how badly I was self-sabotaging by being anything else than authentic all the time. It simply doesn't pay off. There is nothing greater you could reach by not being authentic than simply being it directly - even though we might delude ourselves in thinking differently at times, you know? As if there would actually be some greater good we would reach by putting on social masks and ultimately relinquishing power over ourselves. I don't know if this helped you in some fashion, but otherwise feel free to ask further questions....

To everyone who is perhaps going to read this: you are kindly invited to scrap everything I wrote so far, since it was nothing else but a bunch of complaints and a whole lot of whining. I now managed to resolve my “problem” and gladly, once again, came to the realisation that nothing is more worthwhile than being truly authentic. A simple experiential reminder is all that it took:) @Nahm Thanks buddy, I was just writing this when you posted your post? It’s so distracting when you lose yourself in all those stupid stories and thoughts... really glad that I was reminded once again.

@nistake Yeah, what you've described in the first half is pretty much spot on. I feel like I should just experiment more with being authentic at any cost and letting things unfold naturally instead of attempting to "save" the conversation or interaction with putting on the assumably favourable mask. Because perhaps one doesn't even save as much with that as it first seems to be the case. But then again, in so many cases it simply does save a lot, since in many cases people get noticeably uncomfortable and even scared when there is just stillness and silence instead of what they expect to be there or expect to happen But anyways, I'm gonna experiment a bit now and then we'll see how it goes... It's exactly like Alan Watts put it in a paraphrased way that one gets that kind of strange feeling, just as if a stone was thrown down a well and one didn't hear a splash. (referring to the lack of [ego]-response)

@Zigzag Idiot Whatever I did to help you, I'm glad that it gave you some sort of insight

@Jack Walter Leon Yeah, I'm totally with you on that I mean I can understand why people want to have smalltalk or even need to do so, since it's a certain way to acclimate on a social level (you know, just like dogs like to sniff on each other when they meet for the first few times), but I'm always like "okay, let's cut the bullshit and get straight to the point, if there even is any". Sadly, this just doesn't work with most people, and to assume that it actually could ,would rightfully be delusional, since there are just sooo many differnt kinds of people that often times just have way different things on their mind than oneself does. So in that sense it really does make sense, but it's petty nonetheless, for sure.

@Zigzag Idiot Okay, I've watched the video, thanks for posting it:) Even though I would generally agree that I tend to be more classically introverted than extroverted, that wouldn't even be the great issue. At times I can also be very extroverted, for sure. What bugs me more is the expectancy that people impose onto me and surely other people as well that one has to be or behave a certain way, since they're so used to "being closer to their ego than anything else". Therefore, when someone comes along who won't fulfill these (social) expectancies and goes totally against the common grain, that's what most just can't deal with.

@ShugendoRa Thanks, that's certainly a useful tip. The "problem" is that I'm most of the time much more focused on the other person, as I can't help but to see myself in them. Or in other words, I can't help myself but to look past their own illusion of themselves and to see their true self. It's always very very captivating and thus, even more captivating than myself, because there really isn't that much anymore to focus on in that direction.