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You're welcome. I'm glad that it was helpful. The reason why self-esteem problems come up in the first place is because of various ego protections that happen to conflict with one another. The ego isn't a real thing itself. So, it can't be killed, it can only be seen through. It is the difference between ego repression and ego transcendence. The ego is nothing more than a large collection of thoughts and beliefs organized around and connected to a single false belief, that you are a separate person from everything else in existence. Without this central "I" thought, all of the other thoughts within the collection of thoughts called ego become completely impersonal. So, thoughts that now catalyze feeling of low self-worth, now mean nothing about a separate self. So, these thoughts carry no personalized emotional charge. You can accept your traits as they are. Your thoughts about "you" can't harm you psychologically because there is no separate self to harm. So, I wouldn't wait on the enlightenment work. The more you work on it, the less charge your negative self-talk will have. But there are methods for questioning negative self-talk and replacing those beliefs about the self with more positive ones. So, you can do the enlightenment work along with the self-esteem work. But as you do the self-esteem work, keep in mind that your positive thoughts about yourself are just as illusory as the negative thoughts about yourself.

I think we cannot really understand reincarnation until we fully awaken, because the very concept of separate mind and body is somewhat incompatible with the principle of reincarnation. Personally what I (my ego) would like to take with me to the next life is my personal "achievements", memories, thoughts, concepts - everything that creates the false self which I'll be happy to drop in this very life. Once the false self is dissolved, what is left? What is IT that will be carried to the next life? I have no clue, all I know is that it will be impersonal.

If you are interested, you can read Bhagavat Gita "As it is" by Prabhupada. It is like Indian bible, but it has many interpretations. For example, Hare Krishna people believe that God is personal and beyond nothingness, which is was very appealing for me. But other issues of Bhagavat Gita see God as impersonal. Now I am fine, but I was very confused. I think most negative side affect was psychological suffering and social isolation also waste of time. But I try to be positive and learn from from my mistakes. Moreover, Hare Krishna movement is not that bad in other aspects. They don't use stimulants, live clean life and they could be bright and smart people, who want to help others, but the philosophy is very bad and close minded. If you have time and interest, you can study this material: http://www.ultimateselfrealization.com/ . You will get the idea.

“The strength of man’s position in the world depends on his degree of adequacy of his perception of the world and reality. The less adequate, the more insecure he is and, hence, he is in need of idols to lean on and find security. The more adequate it is, the more he can stand on his own feet and has his center within himself.” Deficiency Cognition/Perception vs Being Cognition/Perception Self-actualized people have B-Cognition! Maslow’s Definition for B-Cognition: A self-actualizing person is more able to perceive the world as if it were independent, not only of him, but also of human beings in general. Therefore, he can look upon nature as if it were there in itself and for itself and not as a human playground put there for human purposes. He can more easily refrain from projecting human purposes onto it and in a word, he can see it is there in its own being rather than a something to be used or something to be afraid of or something to be reacted to in some other human way. A section of cancer seen through a microscope, if only we can forget it is a cancer, can be seen as a beautiful and inspiring organization. A mosquito is a wonderful object if seen as an end by itself.” It is the ability to look at things holistically, as they actually are in a very attentive way, without judging or classifying these thing. It is a egoless and self-agenda-less form of perception; it is unmotivated, impersonal, desireless, unselfish, not needing and detached. It is the ability to perceive an object for itself, not the way it is for you. Your desires and fears and emotions don’t get reflected into the object (physical, living object, institutions, etc.). How you perceive an object is very important since it dictates how you will react to it. If you perceive an object for itself you get the most accurate representation of it. If you perceive an object as it is for you, you get a distorted view of it. You don’t project yourself and your desires into the things you are perceiving. “Self-actualizing people take a non-valuing, non-judging, not-condemning attitude towards others. A desireless-ness and a choiceless awareness; this understanding permits a more clear and insightful perception about what is actually there.” “Concrete perceiving of the whole of the object implies also that it is seen with care; the care that a mother would give to his infant, or the lover at his beloved. This will surely produce a more complete perception than the usual and casual one.” It is the difference between looking at something and seeing it as it is vs what we normally call perception. D-Cognition: Ordinary perception; partial and incomplete form of experience. It is a deficient and anxiety based way of perceiving the world. It is driven by the ego and your self-agenda. The degree in which you have deficiencies and need safety (money, girls, etc), that is the degree to which you are gonna evaluate the things you look at to see if they can give you something that you need. Your mind is very brilliant to filter what it is relevant and what it is not relevant. You perceive things in regard of what you need and want, not what it is in reality. You are constantly judging reality! The D-Perception is anthropocentric, it is the way humans look at the world; It is rigidly rational and abstract (you create your personal model of reality to fit into your self-agenda and ego). You confuse abstractions with perception itself. People cannot stand paradox in d-cognition. It also is ideological and pragmatic. “In ordinary cognition, the object is it is seen not so much per say, but as a member of a class, as an instance of a larger category. This kind of perception is described as classifying and, again, what you need to realize is that this is not a full perception of the object as it is a kind of classifying and labeling. It implies comparing and contrasting.” “Abstractions, to the extent that they are useful, are also false. In a word, to perceive an object abstractly means not to perceive some aspects of it; it clearly implies selection of some attributes, discarding some others and creation and distortion of some others.” “In order to perceive reality fully you need to suspend judgments and classifying, to need and to use. The moment we classify reality we cut the possibility to see it as a beautiful thing.” “Fully disinterested and holistic perception of another human being becomes possible when nothing is needed from him.” “Self-actualizing people can abstract without giving up concreteness and vice versa.” Your own egoic deficiencies distorts reality. The very interaction of you and reality is compromised by your lack of mental health and the accuracy of your perceptions depends on your emotional and mental maturity (the distortion is huge, even though you don’t realize it) and many of the issues you have in your life are created by this distortions. THE PROBLEMS THAT YOU HAVE ARE CREATED BY YOUR PERCEPTIONS. You need to start to notice how your mind distorts and judge reality. You mind creates a model of reality and then tries to fit actual reality in it rather than seeing it as it really is. You are living in an augmented reality. We are the only organism that live in an augmented reality distorted by our concepts, fantasies and ideas (we don’t realize of this augmentation). The ego creates a kind of smog that doesn’t let us see reality as it is. “Thoughts is always doing a great deal, but it tends to say that it hasn’t done anything, that it is telling you the way things really are but it distorts everything. What thoughts takes to be perception it’s actually highly affected by it. Thought can produce experiences without us being aware that they were produces by thoughts. It is this deceptive feature of thought that we have to look for. You need to see that thought is actually participating in perception.” You need to realize that this is a systemic problem and the mind is biased by itself. What can you do? Create awareness around this topic and realize that you perceive life from your own deficiencies. YOU NEED TO LOOK FOR YOURSELF AND REALIZE HOW YOU REFLECT YOUR OWN AGENDA INTO REALITY, PEOPLE AND SITUATIONS. You need to start looking at objects and people for themselves as they actually are, not how they are for you. Projections of your mind that are not features of reality itself: - Labels and names that we give to objects - Categories and hierarchies - Meanings, judgements, values, usefulness and purpose - Emotional Triggers (every time you get emotionally triggered by situations, are also creations of your mind) - Relationships between objects: In reality, everything in the universe is extremely related to everything else in the universe; relationships are infinite. Everything is more complex than you can imagine. - Separations and boundaries: Objects themselves are creations of your mind. If you look upon reality with complete lucidity you will see that there is no single object and boundary in it. - Problems: Problems are creations of the mind, reality has no problems. How to change how you perceive? It requires practice (10,000 hours). Select an object or person that you either hate or love and then see it for itself as it actually is. See it independent of your and its values. Look at the object as God was looking at it. Look at it not even as an object (since it is just an abstraction of your mind). Enlightenment is the dissolution of the ego smog; same thing for meditation and mindfulness. You cannot self-actualize if you don’t improve your cognition. You cannot self-actualize if you maintain your ego (enlightenment). You can improve your life without enlightenment but you will not get to that part of life that it is really juicy and satisfying. You need to make the following choice: - Are you gonna stay faithful to your self-agenda or to reality? Self-agenda is the distortion of reality. “The monster and the little boy metaphor”. If you are wise enough to see the greater good, you will create an extraordinary life!

@DakotaBaba This is from Leo's video on Free Will Vs. Determinism: "Just because there is no self and you're enlightened you can sit around and do nothing. Enlightened people are the most productive people out there. When they want to, and they have an authentic desire, they will have a force of nature. When you have the kind of faith and surrender to life you are unstoppable because nothing can scare you. Yes we are giving up our egotistical power but we will gain complete oneness and unity with life, peace of mind, unconditional happiness, and we get a lot of power by unifying ourselves with the force of nature by allying ourselves with it. We will have the strengths of a waterfall, an avalanche, gravity. These will be impersonal forces, not ego, only act. No pretense in their actions. Very direct like nature." Great video I would recommend watching again. Whatever choice you make in life, just remember that "you" were not the one making it, but that doesn't necessarily mean to sit on the coach, but to use the illusion of freewill to do good for the betterment of humanity.

@charlie2dogs Yes, the Tao te Ching covers all that. @reflectivist Coming back to your question about effort and permanent realization: "Free from desire, you realize the mystery Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations" Desire is a product of living egoistically. Right now you view effort as a kind of burden right? That's why it's quite off putting to be told that constant effort is required. You desire non-effort so you will only see the manifestations of effort. That is, you will be all consumed by the psychosomatic response your body and mind goes through when you are engaged in something that requires effort. You will be constantly preoccupied with the outcomes of your effort as well. Let's say you sit down for a 5 hour strong determination sit. It will be hell for you because your desires will become all consuming when your legs and back start aching, or you get hungry and bored. After full enlightenment, when there is no longer an ego and therefore no longer any desires the sit will just be a flux of impersonal experiences (manifestations) and you will realize the mystery of the invisible immutable substrate (the Tao) in which all these manifestations are arising and passing. So after enlightenment there is effort but there is nobody left to suffer the effort. Realization is permanent but effort can arise and pass. There are in between stages. I'm interested to see Leo's video on the stages of the enlightenment. I like this video. Work, for the sake of work is a fantastic way of grinding down the ego.

God's a touchy subject. I'll paste an extract for the guidelines as a brief reminder to myself to keep on track. Feel free to substitute the word God for Spirit, The Universe, or whatever. In many spiritual disciplines and paths, either a personal or impersonal relationship with God is a tool for transcending or becoming enlightened. I think some might say it can be limiting or misguided, other might say it is useful, some might say it is fundamental. I personally think that given different paths, all these are true at one point or another. For example in the Bakhti school of yoga, the primary practice is one of devotion. Thinking of God at all given moments seems to me like one of (or) the primary practice/s. Here are two extracts from the Bhagavad Gita, a cornerstone hindu scripture. In this context, Krishna is the embodiment and representation of God. We could say that within these practices or paths that the idea of God (or any avatar) is only a symbolic representation of some transcendental omnipresent object, but still, it remains clear to me still that many saints and revered yogi's maintain a very sweet and personal inner relationship, almost like with a lover or something. I also personally suspect that many of these individuals have reached enlightenment. So what are your opinions and experiences on this subject? What is your personal relationships, if any, with God or the universe?

I have realised that the true-self is actually not a self at all.. but a conscious presence that is quietly observing the changing person. It makes awareness possible. It has been there observing the person grow up and become who it is based on genetics, culture, indoctrination, socialisation, conditioning, experiences.. etc. Some enlightenment teachers teach that we are only the "presence" that is making awareness possible. The problem I am having with wrapping my head around this is that, am I not also the human? It feels so impersonal when I simply think of myself as "presence". Where do we strike the balance?

If you have the extra how ever much it costs, then why not have a look? You don't have to believe any of it; but it is a package that purports to help people learn about themselves. Is it harmful? Yes; for the weak minded that might take some impersonal negative limitation and blow it way out of proportion.

You throw concepts away because concepts are not REALITY! WHy would I develop a self concept about me? That is just a SELF - IMAGE. I am not my self image or anyones IMAGE / THOUGHTS of me ! Why are you scared of doing what ever you want? Because we live in a world where we have to act certain ways to please certain people because of certain points of view There is no right or wrong. Its all BS ! Everything about life is impersonal ! Stop speculating so much that doesnt get u anywhere , just creates more CONCEPTUAL STORIES ... ! Sit down and ask yourself what is real until there is no more questions left. There is nothing rational about life or about Reality . Your mind likes to cling to models about reality and how life should be but be sure not to mistaken the MAP for the Territory! All concepts are symbols and images pointing at something. Its really hard to point at something that can't be perceived nor experienced because we are using more concept to remove concept . Regarding enlightenment.. @Nomad

Think about if it was someone who you didn't know much or have any complicated relations with, would you report that person for doing the thing whatever this other person you mention of is doing? If so then go ahead because it seems it's something you'd do as an impersonal act, if not it's probably not serious enough and just a revenge thing.