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I'm getting to a point where I feel like I have to abandon one of my babies... neglect to say the least. After reading a book called 'The One Thing' it was clear to me that I needed atleast 4 hours of uninterrupted deliberate practice every single day to get on track to mastery. I have a longing to become masterful at both digital art & meditation. Is it conducive to have two different domains of mastery? Especially in the beginning phases of my life purpose? In a sense, meditation is difficult but takes very little creative energy although it provides me with alot of creative energy. The more I meditate, the more I am creatively juiced up but it is super time consuming when Im meditating 4+ hours a day. Also meditating long hours also comes with immediate ego backlashes where I get alot of inner work done but I'm more likely to procastinate on my creativity for the rest of the day. I can intuit the answer and the answer is to meditate a few hours a day and invest rest of the time into digital art but I also feel like meditation is a deep part of my life purpose & I strongly feel like life purpose & awakening doesn't have to be two seperate endeavours. I don't meditate solely for awakening purposes, the radical transformation it has brought into my life in just a few years has permeated through each and every part of my life. My concentration has increased immensely and I am able to endure emotional labor and repetition. I know the importance of having a good skillset & I won't be able to sustain my survival if I can't afford to pay the bills so I'm facing quiet a predicament. Ideally, I would be waking up super early and accomplish 4+ hours of deliberate and uninterrupted practice for both activities but as of now, its not practical because of my bad habits & my bodies demand to sleep 6+ hours. I guess a good question is, what is the difference between domain of mastery & the ideal medium when it comes to daily responsibilities and activities? My ideal medium is fueled by my mastery. I want to 'teach consciousness' with my digital art instead of teaching digital art with my digital art so gaining insights and mindfulness is absolutely essential for my life purpose. The trade off to pursue both is that I have to abandon activities like research & development, journaling, contemplating & reading. I can still fit that into my schedulde but I won't be able to do it for long stretches of time.

There is a bottom line assumption at work here. Something that you believe to be true about yourself, even though you may not recognize it as an assumption, because you live it as true. Now when you work on changing your self-and social-image, you already work from a point where that assumption of unworthiness is true. And so you argue and and manage this that you live to be true of you. Real transformation begins when you see that this assumption is non-essential to who and what you truly are. Once this is clearly seen, the belief can be dropped. So long as it remains to be a fundamental part of yourself, you will always have feelings of unworthiness in the background of your experience, no matter how much evidence to the contrary you create in your life.

Human beings can change so radically that you won't notice a single trace of a screwed past. It's possible and I have done it. I was sexually abused when I was a small child but I have gone through such a deep transformation that I don't even remember it in the daily basis anymore. The reason you can resonate with Teal Swan is because she is still broken inside, as she says it herself. But she is deeply aware of her brokenness and that's how she plays the role of a teacher so well. So we have two points here: You can totally overlook someone's f**ked up past, depending on the level of healing that the person went through You don't need to be completely healed to help others. All it takes is awareness of your own wounds. Or simply awareness in general. And of course good wording and enough empathy

Don Beck, author of "Spiral Dynamics", & Said Dawlabani, creator of MEMEnomics, walk us through the Spiral Dynamics model of understanding the evolutionary transformation of human values and cultures - and how that applies to economics. Ken Wilber Don Beck challenges Ken Wilber to Debate! From Graves' work, Beck and his colleague, Cristopher Cowan, developed the theory further and presented a structured evolutionary model of adaptive intelligence called Spiral Dynamics. Beck and Cowan first published their construct in Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values, Leadership, and Change (Exploring the New Science of Memetics) (1996). Spiral Dynamics theory spawned much discussion and (sometimes tangential) integration of concepts by other theorists, such as Ken Wilber. In A Theory of Everything Wilber attempts to bridge business, politics, science and spirituality and show how they integrate with theories of developmental psychology, such as Spiral Dynamics Integral theory (Ken Wilber) All Quadrants All Levels (AQAL, pron. "ah-qwul"), is the basic framework of integral theory. It models human knowledge and experience with a four-quadrant grid, along the axes of "interior-exterior" and "individual-collective". According to Wilber, it is a comprehensive approach to reality, a metatheory that attempts to explain how academic disciplines and every form of knowledge and experience fit together coherently.[2]

Now olmost 3 years into the spritual path, having handful of deep spiritual and some psychedelic experiences, learning a lot of lessons, doing leo’s course (lots of gratitude to leo for helping me on my path), undergoing transformation i never took possible, radically opening my mind for things that have changed my perspective on the world for ever... i now find myself to be kind of stuck/blocked in my path and posting here on the forum to get some insights and/or help but also to introduce myself on the forum in the form of a trip report of my life. shortly about me - I was fully living in stage orange the biggest part of my life and lived completely through it while in the ultimate orange territory; the army. earlier this year i quitted my job at the army, sold my house and moved to another place to pursue my life purpose as a musician. one more reason to quit was that i didn’t resonate with my environment and colleagues anymore because i was transcending consciously and unconsciously from stage orange to stage green the last 3 years. It was holding me back. spiritual path - About 3 years ago, motivated by depressed feelings , suffering and lack of purpose i watched a no bullshit how to meditation video on youtube from leo. Since then i’ve meditated dailly. One year ago i did my first meditation retreat (unfortunately also motivated by some upcoming depressed feelings around that time). in this first 5-day meditation retreat I had one experience of everything being love and light during one meditation, it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my life at that time. it echoed on for some weeks ending with a horrific ego-backlash around oktober/november. But it left me this Huge lesson to start practicing being fully inside my body. which I’m actually still struggling with with ups and downs. 13 weeks ago I did my second 7-day meditation-retreat, i again had some beautiful experiences of everything being love and my consciousness skyrocketed for a while. I also had some experiences/memories what seems to be of past lives. Memories - The first time i started experiencing these memories was back in januari 2018 when i took some psylocibine truffles. I had a awesome trip! Learning a lot about consciousness and gained the skill (or discovered?) of sketching/drawing (with a little bit of help from M.C. Escher, i had paintings of him al around my house, escher being in my life since childhood in the form of books and various other ways since i can remember, i even had the thought one time in my trip that i was the reincarnation of Escher haha?) I always felt a huge creative force inside me my whole life but it never manifested in the way of art, only music. The following weeks I had a strong urge To draw. I was drawing dailly for hours from a place of silence, the most awesome drawings! perfectly and effortlessly without even touching a pencil once in my life before! The most complex mathematical infrastructures and perspective drawings without even doing research on it once. I now know where the name magic truffles come from... but at one point it scared the shit out of me... I was drawing memories that weren’t From me... at least not this life... But at the same time they felt mine and they were coming from a deep place inside that wasn’t my imagination. I later experienced flashbacks of these memories during a 2-cb trip and that Opened the possibility for me that there exists something like a past life. I came to realize that I probably experienced a lot during that life, even some trauma that still needs to be resolved. It may even be so that this trauma is blocking me now but i have to do more research on this topic. I’m still trying to find good recourses. Heart awakening - In the spiral dynamics videos leo points out that having a heart awakening is a great stepping point from orange to green. I Took this seriously and started doing meditation on the heart (the heartfullness way), wim hof breathing, reading books, doing psychedelic trips etc etc only to find out that I haven’t done enough research into the concept heart awakening. and i’m now facing some problems in the form of physical and mental manifestation and i think they all point to the same problem/blockage that prevents me having a heart awakening. I went to some doktors for some physical things like palpitations, migraines some neurological things tiredness/energy problems etc.. nothing weird was found and they couldn’t help me. One medical route i’m following now is lyme dissease, i’ve had around 100 harvest bug bites while in the army and had a very special psychedelic trip that confirmed this thought that i will talk about later in this report. i also started to have some mental problems like hyperventilation and fear 5 years ago I went to a psychologist 2 times and it was treated very Quickly... but it came back during my ego backlash last oktober/november. Went to another psychologist and again it was treated Very quick but i realized this treatment was just on the surface. during my life purpose course i’ve came to realize that healing/health/energy is the number one value in my list, so i have started walking this path now for a few weeks. 2 weeks ago i started with a haptotherapist/sjamanic healer. The first thing he noticed is that all my physical discomfort was all localized on the left side of my body, representing my unbalanced feminine side. One of my biggest issues in life is connection and communication with other people, this resonates with my feminine side. He send me to breathing therapy, holotropic breathing, to deal with my hyperventilation issue, im starting with that next week. I’m still figuring out other ways to heal myself and balance my feminine side. if anyone know ways i’d love to hear them. My masculinity probably have had to much of boost in the army ? Since my first meditation retreat one year ago i started to have some uncomfortable things during my meditations.. the first experience earlier this year was during a “do-nothing” meditation after a lsd trip. I felt a huge pressure in my heart area, it felt like a huge balloon helt under water and it was about to erupt, it felt like a sea of emotions and i thought I couldn’t handle it and fear came along, i pushed the experience away and forced it to stop... (at first i thought it was my physical heart and went to a doktor, had some tests but nothing out of the ordinary came out) i had this same experience again since then for about 4-5 times, everytime it feels too much and i push it away because it feels like I couldn’t handle it... Intuitively i think it has something to do with my heart chakra awakening or maybe past trauma’s. What is the best possible step i could take to deal with all this? What exercises? I’m starting holotropic breath work next week, i think that’ll help. I’m also going to do a kambo ceremony next month. And in the meditation i practice there is a exercise called cleaning that should be useful, i’m doing it at the end of each day. my girlfriend just finished reiki 2 and she could perform it on me, dont know if that is beneficial, i’m still a newbie on this field. For the physical part im starting chinese acupuncture tomorrow, this is also because ive had corona in march and still have some left over symptoms to make it all complete ? healing is definitely a huge part of my life at this moment in order to proceed with my life-purpose and life in general. Lsd and microdosing and lsa trip - lastly, i still have to tell about my last psychedelic experiences. Shit is about to get weird now... it started about 4 weeks ago i had a really bad week and bad luck around this time, and some days later when i was really down and wanted to escape from life for a while and i took a little bit of lsd and weed... i know really bad idea... but while tripping and, of course having a really bad experience! i started to experience some really high consciousness i’ve never had before... And at this place i experienced a meeting with leo and ken wilber... i don’t know if it just were hallucinations/projections of my mind or that I experienced this for real, but it happened and i remember it... one thing that i do know is that I don’t know anything and that i still have to learn a lot about everything in life, and after all my experiences nothing seems very weird anymore. I probably just tripped too unresponsible. the week after that my girlfriend was about to start with microdosing and i joined her, i started to feel better and took it seriously because i didn’t want these drops and downs anymore. I must say that it helped me a lot the last days and weeks and i starting to feel myself again and have energy for life and my purpose in life. And one interesting thing to notice is how it affected my next lsa trip. 2 weeks ago i did a lsa trip, baby Hawaiian woodrose, with my girlfriend. don’t underestimate these little seeds! ?... we both took 550mg prepared capsules. Our location was in nature, we were staying on a camping ground for 3 days. The second day we took the capsules in the morning and left for a unforgettable hike in nature, my intention was “nature as mentor” yep that simple... My girlfriend’s intention was about finding her power in life, and we were about to get answers to this and even more in very profound ways! as we were walking i was becoming very contemplative and philosophical about the life and dead cycle and our consciousness was growing very subtle. Our trip was going very smoothly and mother nature was leading us at a very subtle way. At one point we were standing on a sightseeing point and we felt really small, our ego’s began to melt down. my girlfriend was undergoing a very smooth ego death. I, on the other hand, was struggling with surrender a lot! My girlfriend noticed a pattern of our last few trips and says i always have this on the same point of out trip. I can’t seem to find the problem but she sees it exactly unfolding every time. An half hour went by and i was still struggling with my surrender but suddenly it smashes me in the face and the unexplainable became explained, my consciousness expanded and my ego dissolved! I was laughing and screaming because it felt so good and it was finally there, all of universal wisdom was raining down on me, it felt amazing! After some time my girlfriend and i went back to our camping place and my ego was slowly returning into place and there it was... i started to get hyperventilation and a panic attack on the way back... the same one i’ve described before that is haunting me for a while... it came with a lot of physical discomfort and i thought i was dying, until i realized it was just a panic attack, when we were back inside the tent i felt bad... really bad! I had no energy and a lot of pain... in past trips with my girlfriend we discovered that my girlfriend has some energetic power while tripping and she can kind of cure my pain and discomfort at an energy level... so she was performing her things on me and it started to help... i felt better. just when i thought it couldn’t be more profound, we both started to feel a presence of someone else joining us. It all happened very fast and smooth. It was my grandmother who past away when i was a kid, unfortunately i never really got to know her...until now. She told us she was helping me already for a really long time and was giving me signs And directions in my life, everytime i asked for help the last weeks and months for my pain and discomfort and suffering she was actually helping me! My girlfriend didn’t knew my grandmother or knew anything about her but she was speaking for her, at the same time i could also feel her words in my body... the recognition at that moment is was absolutely the most beautiful experience of my life! I was finally crying after years of holding my tears back and it felt amazing to finally release it. My grandmother told me she was happy that I finally recognized her and that she was with me all the time and that she was leaving signs and signals, she told me that she was helping my mother too and she finished by saying that I absolutely need to keep practicing my gratitude! I never believed in things like these but my open mindedness got stretched a lot that moment. After this experience my girlfriend told me that leo was also here and he was looking self fullfilled, probably a projection of my mind or something because leo is an important part of my spiritual journey and personal development. After this was finished we moved a little and saw something moving on our bed... harvest bugs. in dutch they are called teek/teken. Translated it means “sign/signs”. It was the answer i had in my mind that i probably have lyme-disease showed in a horrible but clear way ?.... at least for me motivation to follow the path of healing. it was a really deep and profound spiritual experience. i just felt i needed to post this here, i hope you’ve enjoyed my writing. And i hope someone can learn something from my story. Thanks to everybody for sharing this thing together we call life. And lastly thanks to Leo for all the teachings and work that you do.

There's too much to share... Here I go though: The world is a mirror and doorway to yourself. Forgiveness will free you. Killing someone is killing yourself. Judging someone is judging yourself. Loving someone is loving yourself. Love is the only thing worth living for. All will pass. Life is a journey of transformation meant to grow your capacity to accept and love yourself, and indirectly everyone else. God does exist. He is the clarity and light that sits in silence within your mind. We are meant to fulfill the direction the light/God takes us. Ego is Good especially when it is aligned with Love. There is a time for everything. Everything exists within itself, for itself. if you close your eyes, you open another.

@Demeter Eventually yes, but the process of transformation was extremely disruptive. I don't imagine I could have completed a PHD course in the 5-7 year period it lasted. I definitely have a much sharper mind and better memory, than I used to, but I would not recommend raising your Kundalini for that reason alone, it is a long slog to get there. However, just meditating in general and keeping fit physically, coupled with an appropriate diet, should do the trick. Brain tissue is mostly Cholesterol, so eating plenty of eggs, dairy and fish should help keep your brain power up. I'm not aware of any psychedelics that would give you a brain upgrade, they serve a different purpose, which is mostly to connect you to the spirit world and to help you realise your true nature.

@Rilles For me, every glimpse fades after a couple of hours. It always leaves me with "This is not quite it". It has kinda become a joke that I tell myself in many situations even though its more a bitter realization - "This is not quite it". I dont expect the lasting transformation to have a significant effect on my feelings. At least I still hope it gets myself out of my own way in everyday life. Would be a huge relief.

Nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental intrinsic oneness. For thousands of years, through deep inner inquiry, philosophers and sages have come to the realization that there is only one substance and we are therefore all part of it. This substance can be called Awareness, Consciousness, Spirit, Advaita, Brahman, Tao, Nirvana or even God. It is constant, ever present, unchangeable and is the essence of all existence. In the last century Western scientists are arriving at the same conclusion: The universe does indeed comprise of a single substance, presumably created during the Big Bang, and all sense of being – consciousness – subsequently arises from it. This realization has ontological implications for humanity: fundamentally we are individual expressions of a single entity, inextricably connected to one another, we are all drops of the same ocean. Science and Nonduality is a journey, an exploration of the nature of awareness, the essence of life from which all arises and subsides. What is nonduality, anyway? There are many shades of meaning to the word nonduality. As an introduction, we might say that nonduality is the philosophical, spiritual, and scientific understanding of non-separation and fundamental oneness. Our starting point is the statement “we are all one,” and this is meant not in some abstract sense, but at the deepest level of existence. Duality, or separation between the observer and the observed, is an illusion that the Eastern mystics have long recognized, and Western science has more recently come to understand through quantum mechanics. Dualities are usually seen in terms of opposites: Mind/Matter, Self/Other, Conscious/Unconscious, Illusion/Reality, Quantum/Classical, Wave/Particle, Spiritual/Material, Beginning/End, Male/Female, Living/Dead and Good/Evil. Nonduality is the understanding that identification with common dualisms avoids recognition of a deeper reality. So how can we better understand nonduality? There are two aspects to this question, and at first glance they appear to be mutually exclusive, although they may be considered two representations of a single underlying reality. The first aspect is our understanding of external reality, and for this we turn to science. The word science comes from the Latin scientia, which means knowledge. The beauty and usefulness of science is that it seeks to measure and describe reality without personal, religious, or cultural bias. For something to be considered scientifically proven, it has to pass exhaustive scrutiny, and even then is always subject to future revision. Inevitably human biases creep in, but the pursuit of science itself is intrinsically an evolving quest for truth. But then quantum mechanics turned much of this lauded objectivity on its head, as the role of the observer became inseparable from the observed quantum effect. It is as if consciousness itself plays a role in creating reality. Indeed, the two may be the same thing. As quantum pioneer Niels Bohr once put it: “A physicist is just an atom’s way of looking at itself!” The second aspect is our inner, personal experience of consciousness, our “awareness of awareness.” We have our senses to perceive the world, but “behind” all perception, memory, identification and thought is simply pure awareness itself. Eastern mystics have described this undifferentiated consciousness for thousands of years as being the ultimate state of bliss, or nirvana. Seekers have attempted to experience it for themselves through countless rituals and practices, although the state itself can be quite simply described. As Indian advaita teacher Nisargadatta Maharaj said: “The trinity: mind, self and spirit, when looked into, becomes unity.” The central challenge to understanding nonduality may be that it exists beyond language, because once it has been named, by definition — and paradoxically — a duality has been created. Even the statement “all things are one” creates a distinction between “one” and “not-one”! Hardly any wonder that nonduality has been misunderstood, particularly in the West. Excerpt above from: https://www.scienceandnonduality.com/about/nonduality/ Other resources, explanations, & pointers to nonduality: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-O_KhOnJ62o http://www.lifewithoutacentre.com/writings/what-is-nonduality/ , https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondualism https://endless-satsang.com/advaita-nonduality-oneness.htm Meditation Preparations & Considerations of The Temple (The Body) Make changes in accordance with listening to the body via feeling. Let go of assumptions about what you know, what you can & can’t do, and who you are & are not. Be mindful of the distinction between what you directly experience, and your thought about something. Be mindful the term direct experience does not refer to a past, a now, a present, a future, or a self (these are thoughts). Be conscious of breathing, and breathe from the stomach. Notice the increase in awareness of feeling in the body when you do so. Maintain toxin free care & hygiene, such as with: preservatives, fluoride, aluminum, mercury, & neurotoxin free products and water. Get a routine physical & full comprehensive blood report, and review it with your doctor (preferably a Holistic Dr). Eat clean. Food is mood, mood is clarity. Listen to your body & educate yourself about food; calories, nutrients, vitamins, supplements, etc. Your second best friend in this whole world, should be your stomach. Try several approaches to eating. Realize you only know about food from direct experience and let assumptions go. Listen to the body, put habit & preference of taste secondary to energy and clarity. Put direct experience, of how you feel, first. Exercise to the extent you are able, as early in the day as you are able. Don’t eat after 8pm, drink water instead. Be mindful of honesty, humility, & compassion. Pause to allow the presence of love when creating responses, vs mindlessly reacting. Get 8 hrs of sleep. Meditate early in the morning, before eating, and before any thought engaging activities like; - All screens, reading anything, listening to any thing or anyone, talking to anyone, etc. Instead, step outside and express gratitude. - Thinking. Develop letting thinking go from waking up until after meditation. Every thought that arises, let it go by being aware of breathing & feeling. Use ”not till after meditation” as needed. Love yourself enough to do this, your quality of life will be greatly enhanced by your commitment and followthrough with daily meditation. This is putting your inner well being first - and then going about your day. It is a total game changer. Get up as early as needed to make this possible for yourself. You’ll only fall asleep earlier as a result, and get a better night’s sleep. Maintain a dream journal. Every morning when you wake up, write any recollections of dreams in the journal. If there were none, write “no dreams last night” in the journal. Doing this daily develops connection and communication. After writing a dream down, let it go completely. Revisit it after meditation. Consider that in between the pure peace of sleep and awakening, the dream is the reconciliation of those two states. After meditation, contemplate the dream message. Consider it from the perspective that you are dreaming right now, and the message is that everything is fine, even this (whatever the dream was about). You will notice perspectives you’re believing, as to how ‘everything is not fine’. Those, can be let go in meditation. Maintain a journal for writing about how you feel. If meditation is overwhelming, don’t persist against the grain, write about how you’re feeling in your journal. Expressing in key. It is a ‘getting it out’, or emptying, by which being fills in. This is the same as saying misunderstanding is let go, and understanding arises. Add creative expression in your days with what feels right for you, such as; creative writing, drawing, learning an instrument, singing, sculpting, building, carving, dancing - any act of creating and expressing, which feels good to you. Sign up for a drawing or painting class, etc. Clarity, emotional intelligence, understanding, focus, patience, and more feeling / connection, are natural outcomes of this. Regarding meditation, loving yourself, journaling, expressing, and making changes: Do not ask others to accommodate you so that you can do this. Accommodate them, if needed, so that you can do this. Do not create conditions or contingencies which “allow” that you can do this. Refrain from entangling any other person in ‘enabling’ you. Simply get up earlier, and be patient when tired, you’ll be falling asleep earlier soon enough. Past trauma may be deeply entwined in the body, with regard to perspectives, and unknowingly suppressed, held out of the light of understanding. It is important to be humble, and be smart. Take advantage of all resources available to you. In addition to the things mentioned above, experience assistance bringing things to the surface, into the light, out into the open. That is relief. ’Getting it out’ is the key. Schedule time with practitioners of well being; massage, reiki, therapy, yoga, liberated experienced meditators, etc. Making the choice to directly experience is 99% of ‘the work’. Choose to experience the combination that feels best to you, but do not rule anything you have not experienced out. You will be glad. Proper Foundation The quality of tomorrow’s meditation is impacted by all of the above. Recognize those as the basics, your foundation. This is - first “cleaning the house”, “emptying the cup”. If you are not yet finding peace in meditation, the things above are likely insightful and actionable. Use them as a checklist, add to it what you learn works and doesn’t work for you. Understand why. Be mindful of the direct experience always, not the goal or outcome. Never do practices for the sake of getting them done. Never do practices with the intention or expectation of attaining, achieving, or becoming. Let go of these in your practices. Never force pracitices, and never guilt or shame yourself regarding practices. Let go of these in your practices. Likewise, never pride yourself on or claim the benefits of your practices. A phone which knows the truth of wifi, yet claims it as it’s own, is no longer listening to the wifi. It is always about letting go, and feeling the inner being, the source, within. Posture, Balance & Relaxation Sit with spine straight, entire body equally balanced, head tilted slightly forward. Scan for any muscles in tension - from balancing the body, and reposition in better balance. Repeat until seated in balance; drop all muscle tension, and see if you lean; if so, adjust again / reposition for balance. Relax every muscle, from crown of head, through body, to the toes - in waves of letting go, over and over. If you struggle to ‘find the particular muscle’ to be able to ‘let it go’, simply tense that muscle with the appropriate thought, ex: “tense the right shoulder” - this is to locate it specifically - only to relax it / let it go, specifically (only needed initially, if at all). Stay with each muscle until you feel it release: Feel the crown of the head muscles release, feel the temples release, feel the eye sockets release, feel the cheek muscles release, feel the neck muscles release, the shoulders, the upper back, the lower back, the arms, the hands, the fingers, the chest, the stomach, the hips, the thighs, the knees, the calves, the ankles, the feet, the toes - all tension pouring out through the toes. *Stay with each muscle until you feel it release, then move to the next. Be mindful, vigilant of any habit forming. Feel every step. Feel each specific muscle release. * Repeat this, from crown to toes, over and over, feeling each “pass” more deeply relaxing each targeted muscle than the pass before. Notice the entire body unifying in relaxation. Meditation Do not move the body, allow it to relax into deep sleep and disappear from sensation & awareness. Mind fully alert & present; awaken every cell, enthusiastic presence, a tiger at-the-ready to pounce. Notice all senses are one sense, being. Being is breathing, being is breathed in, being is breathed out. Notice the ineffable spaciousness, the silent emptiness. It is whole, perfect, calm, peaceful. It continues on in all directions. Revel in the perfect peace, in innocence, as you recognize the purity that you have always known. Allow Meditation “Practice” To Become A Meditative Lifestyle As you go about your day, notice this peace is still present, this silence, this being - is always present, always the soundbed underlying and allowing all sounds, the spaciousness underlying and allowing all objects and activities, the emptiness allowing all thoughts to arise. Carry this into each day, mindful of the effortless nature of awareness. Conscious of any tension in any muscle, relax it, mindful of the one sense; without identification, without reaction, peaceful non-engagement. Notice the arising perspectives of unification & connection. Surrender perspectives of separation by allowing them to pass, and return to the everpresent peace and silence which allows all things. When you notice reaction, wether muscular or mental, relax, detach by being again aware, non-reactionary. Even as reactions occur, wether physical, mental, or verbal, be aware of, not involved in. Relax crown to toes, effortless awareness is always available & ample. Notice the sound of a voice, is not the sound of your voice. Be that unattached, and that aware, ‘that’ voice is no longer your voice, it never was. You are all sounds, all voices, all things. Be aware all transpires in the ‘one sense’, precisely where it is seen, exactly where it is heard. One Sense, one awareness. Notice thoughts are not your thoughts, be aware thoughts are things, like trees are trees; there is no mechanism found for justification of “yours”, that is just another thought; awareness is unconditional and omnipresent, and never appears in pieces, and has never not appeared, it will never let you down. Notice there is one sense, one awareness, notice the body and mind are a body and mind which transpires in this peaceful awareness, notice a body and mind is not your body and mind, notice there is one sense, one awareness, all is transpiring and arising in. After some practice a couple new things arise... When you have ‘returned’ home, in the peace of non-reaction, the ‘finite ceo’ / “decision maker”/ over thinker/over thinking - naturally recedes, and well being of infinite intelligence will manipulate the body (it actually is “the body”) , aligning things, stretching things, cracking things, etc, just allow this. It’s difficult not to mentally react to this at first because it’s new, but just relax, it is curative, trust it - notice a person is not doing this, infinite intelligence is. Mindfully revel & appreciate this miracle. A word of caution regarding thought stories & dualistic narratives Meditation at it’s most basic level is focusing on breathing in the stomach & relaxing the body, thus indirectly detaching attention from thoughts. Thought ceases in activity, simply from not receiving attention. The body is infinite intelligence, but the thinking dualistic mind believes it’s running the show. This is brought to an end in meditation, in ‘returning to’, or realization of, who you really are. When the body relaxes deeply, it releases contractions; tension from emotions created in misunderstanding via one’s forgetting who one is and “making sense” of self & reality in an apparent physical universe & separate body. These ‘held’ tensions are the root cause of overthinking. The mind keeps churning in an attempt to resolve with thinking, what is only resolved in feeling. When the body (infinite intelligence / nothing to know) begins releasing the suppressed falsities (all knowledge & specifically the idea of “me”), the mind creates narratives of the experience to perpetuate “it’s control”. In perpetuating the misunderstandings, rather than relaxing & releasing the suppressed emotions by maintaining focus on stomach breathing, the mind (thinking) weaves & latches onto varies models of duality to control the narrative. (Kundalini, demons, assertion, death, nervous disorders, past “bad” trips, guilt, shame, unworthiness, fear, anxiety & past stories, depression & future stories, projections, deflections, identity, loss, sacrifice, etc) But meditation is focusing on breathing from the stomach & relaxing the body, and thus indirectly detaching from thoughts. To believe any narrative which arises in meditation, is to sustain and perpetuate the “idea of you”, so as not to ‘directly experience’, you. So if you don’t want to awaken, but enjoy the fundamental benefits of meditation, just meditate for twenty minutes a day. Ideally in the morning. If you do want to awaken, realize you got caught up in a thought story, and meditation was focusing on breathing from the stomach, and thus indirectly letting thinking go. The truth is the mind is making it all up, and the “fear” is the mind’s label to justify denying the truth “of itself”, the profound love that is, that you actually are. Write about how you feel and why, in a journal, to understand yourself & develop emotional intelligence. Talk to someone who listens, so you can express yourself and your emotions. Write what you want in this experience of life on your dreamboard, and allow the surfacing of desire & authenticity to help you realize & release resistance thoughts. Live the life you actually want to live, the way you actually want to live it. https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/meditation-practices Posture Meditation This body-based meditation is a very effective way to get grounded and centered. It encourages an embodied, calm, and open awareness, and discourages disassociation. If you have a tendency to "leave your body," feel ungrounded, or disassociated, this is a good practice. Sit with your spine straight and aligned, and the rest of your body relaxed. Keep bringing yourself back to this condition. 1. Take a reposed, seated posture. 2. For this meditation, it is very important that your spine is straight. Your neck and back should be in perfect alignment. Your chin should be down very slightly. 3. If you are sitting in a chair, do not rest your spine against the chair. Sit forward so that your spine is supporting its own weight. Let the muscles of the spine be engaged. 4. All the other muscles of your body can be completely relaxed. Allow your face muscles to let go, and your jaw to drop slightly, so that your teeth are not touching. 5. Let your shoulders hang freely, and let your belly be soft and open. 6. This is the posture you are aiming for, with your spine erect and your body completely relaxed. 7. As you sit, keep bringing your awareness back to the fine details of your posture. Notice any time your spine slumps even slightly, your head leans to either side, or any other deviation. Correct these gently and repeatedly. 8. Also notice if any other areas of your body tense up even slightly. If anything is tensing, relax it in a gently and soft manner. 9. Keep checking in with the body, using your body (somatic) awareness; the feeling in your body. Mental images of your body will probably arise, which is fine, but these are not what you are concentrating upon. Instead, concentrate your awareness in the sense of your body. The sensitivity in your muscles, tissues, viscera, skin, and so forth. 10. The more detailed and minute you get with this awareness, the better. Each tiny area of the body has its own sensitivity to contribute. 11. Every once in a while you can zoom out to cover the entire somatosensory field -- the awareness of your entire body -- to bring the overall body back into alignment. 12. Keep relaxing every muscle everywhere. Use just enough tension to keep your spine erect, but no more. 13. Continue this meditation for at least 10 minutes, continuously contacting your body awareness. CAUTIONS: If you have any spinal injuries or severe back pain, it is fine to allow your spine to rest in a pain-free position. If you find yourself distracted by a lot of mental chatter, you can use verbal labeling as an aid to concentration. For example, when checking on the spine, you can say to yourself, "spine in alignment." When checking on the body, say, "body relaxed." Awareness of Thoughts Meditation By learning to watch your thoughts come and go during this practice, you can gain deeper insight into thinking altogether (such as its transience) and into specific relationships among your thoughts and your emotions, sensations, and desires. This practice can also help you take your thoughts less personally, and not automatically believe them. Additionally, this meditation can offer insight into any habitual patterns of thinking and related reactions. Observe your thoughts as they arise and pass away. · By “thoughts,” we mean self-talk and other verbal content, as well as images, memories, fantasies, and plans. Just thoughts may appear in awareness, or thoughts plus sensations, emotions, or desires. · Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position. · Become aware of the sensations of breathing. · After a few minutes of following your breath, shift your attention to the various thoughts that are arising, persisting, and then passing away in your mind. · Try to observe your thoughts instead of getting involved with their content or resisting them. · Notice the content of your thoughts, any emotions accompanying them, and the strength or pull of the thought. · Try to get curious about your thoughts. Investigate whether you think in mainly images or words, whether your thoughts are in color or black and white, and how your thoughts feel in your body. · See if you notice any gaps or pauses between thoughts. · Every time you become aware that you are lost in the content of your thoughts, simply note this and return to observing your thoughts and emotions. · Remember that one of the brain’s major purposes is to think, and there is nothing wrong with thinking. You are simply practicing not automatically believing and grasping on to your thoughts. · When you are ready, return your attention to your breath for a few minutes and slowly open your eyes. Optional: · There are various metaphors and images you can use to help observe your thoughts. These include: o Imagining you are as vast and open as the sky, and thoughts are simply clouds, birds, or planes passing through the open space. o Imagining you are sitting on the side of a river watching your thoughts float by like leaves or ripples in the stream. o Imagine your thoughts are like cars, buses, or trains passing by. Every time you realize you are thinking, you can “get off the bus/train” and return to observing. Awareness of thoughts and emotions is one of the areas of focus developed when cultivating mindfulness. In Buddhism, mindfulness is one of the seven factors of enlightenment and the seventh instruction in the Noble Eightfold Path. The Seven Factors of Enlightenment: https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/piyadassi/wheel001.html The Four Noble Truths:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Noble_Truths The Noble Eightfold Path: https://tricycle.org/magazine/noble-eightfold-path/ CAUTIONS: Please be gentle with yourself if you notice that you are constantly caught up in your thoughts instead of observing them. This is both common and normal. When you realize that you are thinking, gently and compassionately return to observing your thoughts. If the content of your thoughts is too disturbing or distressing, gently shift your attention to your breathing, sounds, or discontinue the practice. · Remember that you are not trying to stop thoughts or only allow certain ones to arise. Try to treat all thoughts equally and let them pass away without engaging in their content. · This practice can initially be more challenging than other meditations. As you are learning, practice this meditation for only a few minutes at a time if that is easier. · It can be helpful to treat thoughts the same way that you treat sounds or body sensations, and view them as impersonal events that arise and pass away. · Some people like to assign numbers or nicknames to reoccurring thoughts in order to reduce their pull and effect. Breath Awareness Meditation Stress is an extremely unhealthy condition. It causes the body to release the chemical cortisol, which has been shown to reduce brain and organ function, among many other dangerous effects. Modern society inadvertently encourages a state of almost continuous stress in people. This is a meditation that encourages physical and mental relaxation, which can greatly reduce the effects of stress on the body and mind. Sit still and pay close attention to your breathing process. Take a reposed, seated posture. Your back should be straight and your body as relaxed as possible. Close your eyes, and bring your attention to your breathing process. Simply notice you are breathing. Do not attempt to change your breath in any way. Breath simply and normally. Try to notice both the in breath and the out breath; the inhale and the exhale. "Notice" means to actually feel the breathing in your body with your body. It is not necessary to visualize your breathing or to think about it in any way except to notice it with your somatic awareness. Each time your attention wanders from the act of breathing, return it to noticing the breath. Do this gently and without judgment. Remember to really feel into the act of breathing. If you want to go more deeply into this, concentrate on each area of breathing in turn. Here is an example sequence: 1. Notice how the air feels moving through your nostrils on both the in breath and the out breath. 2. Notice how the air feels moving through your mouth and throat. You may feel a sort of slightly raspy or ragged feeling as the air moves through your throat. This is normal and also something to feel into. 3. Notice how the air feels as it fills and empties your chest cavity. Feel how your rib cage rises slowly with each in breath, and gently deflates with each out breath. 4. Notice how your back expands and contracts with each breath. Actually feel it shifting and changing as you breath. 5. Notice how the belly expands outward with each in breath and pulls inward with each in breath. Allow your attention to fully enter the body sensation of the belly moving with each breath. 6. Now allow your attention to cover your entire body at once as you breath in and out. Closely notice all the sensations of the body as it breathes. Repeat this sequence over and over, giving each step your full attention as you do it. Suggested time is at least 10 minutes. Thirty minutes is better, if you are capable of it. If you find yourself distracted by a lot of mental chatter, you can use verbal labeling as an aid to concentration. For example, on the in breath, mentally say to yourself, "Breathing in." On the out breath, say, "Breathing out." Another possibility is to mentally count each breath. Self Inquiry This is a meditation technique to get enlightened, i.e. "self realization." By realizing who you are, the bonds of suffering are broken. Besides this goal, self-inquiry delivers many of the same benefits as other meditation techniques, such as relaxation, enhanced experience of life, greater openness to change, greater creativity, a sense of joy and fulfillment, and so forth. Focus your attention on the feeling of being "me," to the exclusion of all other thoughts. 1. Sit in any comfortable meditation posture. 2. Allow your mind and body to settle. 3. Now, let go of any thinking whatsoever. 4. Place your attention on the inner feeling of being "me." 5. If a thought does arise (and it is probable that thoughts will arise on their own), ask yourself to whom this thought is occurring. This returns your attention to the feeling of being "me." Continue this for as long as you like. This technique can also be done when going about any other activity. CAUTIONS: Many people misunderstand the self-inquiry technique to mean that the person should sit and ask themselves the question, "Who am I?" over and over. This is an incorrect understanding of the technique. The questions "Who am I" or "To whom is this thought occurring?" are only used when a thought arises, in order to direct attention back to the feeling of being "me." At other times the mind is held in silence. This practice of Self-attention or awareness of the ‘I’-thought is a gentle technique, which bypasses the usual repressive methods of controlling the mind. It is not an exercise in concentration, nor does it aim at suppressing thoughts; it merely invokes awareness of the source from which the mind springs. The method and goal of self-enquiry is to abide in the source of the mind and to be aware of what one really is by withdrawing attention and interest from what one is not. In the early stages effort in the form of transferring attention from the thoughts to the thinker is essential, but once awareness of the ‘I’-feeling has been firmly established, further effort is counter-productive. From then on it is more a process of being than doing, of effortless being rather than an effort to be. Do Nothing Meditation Many respected spiritual traditions, including Buddhism and Hindu Advaita just to name two, claim that the highest state of spiritual communion is actually present in our minds at all times. And yet many meditation techniques focus on creating some special state that wasn't there before the meditation, and which goes away at some point after the meditation. If the highest state is actually present all the time, shouldn't it be possible to simply notice it without inducing some change, or special state? That is exactly the purpose of the Do Nothing Meditation. This technique (which is really an un-technique) will allow you to contact the highest spiritual state without actually doing anything. Each time you notice an intention to control or direct your attention, give it up. 1. There is no need to get into any particular posture, unless you feel like it. 2. Do not position your attention in any particular way. 3. Let whatever happens happen. 4. Any time you notice yourself doing anything intentionally, stop. Doing anything intentionally means something you can voluntarily control, and therefore can stop. If you cannot stop doing something, then it's not intentional, and therefore you don't need to try to stop doing it. So. Anything you can stop doing, stop doing. Some examples of things you can stop doing are: * Intentionally thinking * Trying to focus on something specific * Trying to have equanimity * Trying to keep track of what's going on * Trying to meditate Let go of doing anything like this. 5. Keep doing nothing for at least 10 minutes, or as long as you like. CAUTIONS: It may be difficult for some people to notice any difference between the Do Nothing meditation and gross "monkey mind," that is, the ceaseless, driven and fixated thoughts of the everyday neurotic mind. If this seems to be the case for you, it may be helpful to do a more structured technique. Concentration (One-Pointedness) Meditation One of the hallmarks of modern life is the proliferation of distractions. As media become more pervasive, and media connections more ubiquitous, time away from distractions becomes ever harder to find. Previously, people were content to sit in restaurants, or stand in line, without a television screen to stare at. Now these have become standard. The result of all this, and many other causes, is that people find it increasingly difficult to focus their minds. Concentration is a necessary human skill. It makes proper thinking possible, increases intelligence, and allows a person to calm down and achieve their goals more effectively. A concentrated mind is like a laser beam, able to use all its powers in a single direction to great effect. Concentration is critical to many human endeavors. Being able to listen to another person, for example, in a compassionate and connected manner requires being able to shut out distractions. The experience of making love can be greatly enhanced when one is not, for example, thinking about other things. Concentration allows a person to stop being a "reaction machine" or "robot," simply responding to stimulii, and instead to become more thoughtful, self-directed, and confident. Concentration is an interesting thing. It is a very general ability. That means developing concentration in one area will help you concentrate in ALL areas. So, for example, if you learn to concentrate on a particular idea, it not only helps you think about that idea (which would be very limited), but actually helps you to concentrate on anything, which is very generally useful for everything! It's like lifting weights. It doesn't just make you strong for lifting weights, but strong for anything else you want to do! Think about one thing. Every time you get distracted, return to that one thing. 1. Find an object on which to concentrate. This can be a physical object, like a pebble or a feather. Or it can be a mental object like a particular idea. It could even be, say, your homework. 2. Cut off any sources of distraction. These include, but are not limited to, telephones, emails, computers, music, television, and so forth. Turn all of these off during your concentration practice. 3. Begin your period of by mentally reminding yourself what you are concentrating on. 4. Now begin to concentrate. If your concentration object is an external object, this may mean looking at it. If it is a mental object, then think about it. If it is your homework, then do it now. 5. Each time your mind (or eyes) wander from your concentration object, bring it back to the object. It is important to do this very gently and without judgment. 6. Repeat this process of coming back to the concentration object for as long as you wish, or until your homework is done. Cultures worldwide have developed concentration practices for both spiritual and practical reasons. Concentration is called dharana in Hinduism, and samadhi or shamatha in Buddhism. It is considered to be a key skill for meditation. CAUTIONS: Concentration can at first seem to trigger a lot of anxiety. This is, however, not the fault of the concentration practice. Rather, it happens because many people use distraction to avoid feeling emotions. Then when the distractions are removed, a tremendous amount of ambient, unprocessed emotions (i.e. emotions you are feeling but were unaware of feeling) are present. So it is not the practice of concentration that is causing anxiety, but instead it is the habit of distracting ourselves from our emotions. This may be the root cause of much inability to focus and concentrate. If that is the case, try meditating on emotions (below). Concentration and meditation are not the same thing, although they are related. Meditation (usually) requires concentration, but also requires relaxation or equanimity. Emotional Awareness Meditation This meditation brings about a great deal of equanimity with emotions. They will not seem to affect us as deeply or adversely. Many people have trouble contacting their emotions directly. Even if we feel that we know what emotion we are having, that does not necessarily mean that we are contacting it directly. To contact an emotion directly means to feel it in the body. This is the opposite of most people's experience, which is to related ideas about the emotion. Here is an example. A person asks you how you are feeling. You respond by saying, "I am angry, because..." You then go on to tell the person all the reasons you are angry. In this example, only the first three words, "I am angry" have anything to do with contacting emotion. All the rest of the explanation is about concepts. A fuller example of contacting emotions directly, that is somatically, would be to say, "I am angry. I can feel a sort of gripping tension in my belly that is uncomfortable. The tense area feels kind of twisted and sharp. Parts of it are throbbing. It also feels like it is radiating heat outwards." Notice that the cause of the anger is irrelevant. The practice here is to feel the physical expression of the anger as completely as possible. Extended practice of this meditation will bring about "skill at feeling," that is, a tremendous amount of clarity in the emotional world. Emotional intelligence. It will also help emotions to process and release much more quickly and completely, because we are not holding on to ideas about the emotions. The body processes emotion quickly, naturally, and fully. Feel the physical expression of an emotion as completely as possible. 1. Settle into a comfortable meditation posture. 2. Breathing normally, bring your attention to your emotions. Notice if you are feeling any emotions, no matter how faintly. It is not necessary to know precisely which emotion you are having, or why you are having it. Just knowing that you are feeling something emotional is enough. Guessing is OK. 3. Once you detect an emotion, see if you can find its expression in your body. Maybe there is a feeling of tension, gripping, tightening, burning, twisting, throbbing, pressure, lightness, openness, etc. 4. If you like, you can mentally make the label "feel" when you detect a body sensation of emotion. Other labels are possible ("emotion" for example). 5. Each time you detect an emotional body sensation, try to actually feel the sensation in your body, as completely as possible. Feel it through and through. 6. Completely let go of any ideas you have about the emotion, or self talk you might have about why the emotion is arising. Return to the body sensation of the emotion. 7. Continue contacting these emotional body sensations for as long as you wish. Meditating on emotions is a traditional part of Vipassana practice in Buddhism. It is, for example, one of the four main techniques covered in the Vissudhimagga (The Path to Purity), an important Buddhist text. (The version presented here is a summary of a practice given by American Buddhist teacher Shinzen Young.) At first, practicing this meditation may make it seem as if the emotions are getting bigger. If they are negative emotions, this may seem overwhelming for a while. This is natural. It is occuring not because the emotions are actually getting bigger, but for two interesting reasons. The first is because we are no longer suppressing them. We are allowing them to actually express themselves fully. The second is because we are observing them (actually feeling them) very closely. Just as a microscope makes small things look bigger, the "microscope" of attention makes the emotional body sensations seem larger than they really are. The good news here is that as the emotions express themselves freely in the body, they are being processed. Usually this means that they will pass much more quickly. If we are feeling a positive emotion in this way, it may pass quickly, but we will also derive much more satisfaction from it, because our experience of it is so rich and complete. If we are feeling a negative emotion in this way, we will experience much less suffering from it, because we are not resisting and suppressing it. Equanimity Meditation The cause of much of our upset and emotional instability is clinging and neediness around people we like, and aversion and negativity towards people we don't like. We also have an unhealthy indifference to strangers, who may need our help, or at least our good will. This equanimity meditation helps us to examine our feelings towards people, and correct them where they are mistaken. This leads to a more balanced, wholesome, and helpful viewpoint. It also cuts off a lot of emotional turmoil at its root. Meditate on three people (a loved one, an enemy, and a neutral person), examining and correcting your feelings toward them. 1. Sit in a comfortable meditation posture. Follow your breath until you feel centered and grounded. 2. Bring to mind the images of three people: someone you like, someone you dislike, and someone towards whom you feel indifferent. Keep these three people in mind throughout the meditation. 3. Focus on the friend, and look into all the reasons you like this person. Try to see if any of the reasons are about things this person does for you, or ways they uplift your ego. Ask yourself if these are really the correct reasons to like someone. Then do the same thing with the person you dislike, instead asking about the reasons you dislike them. Finally, do this for the person you are indifferent towards, asking about the reasons for your indifference. In all cases, notice where your ego is involved in the judgment of the other person's worth. 4. Next, ask yourself whether you consider each of these relationships as permanent. Would you still like your friend if they did something terrible to you? What if the person you dislike really did something nice for you? What if the stranger became close to you? Think about all the relationships in the past in which your feelings about the person have dramatically changed. 5. Now, visualize the person you like doing something you dislike or that is unacceptable to you. Would you still be their friend? Remember that many people have changed from friends to enemies in the past. There are people who you used to like, toward whom you now feel emnity. Think about how there is no special reason to feel good about a person who is only temporarily your friend. 6. Next, visualize your enemy doing something very kind for you. They might visit you in the hospital, or help you to fix your home. When you imagine this, can you feel positive emotions toward this person? Can you remember times in the past when an enemy became a friend? Is it necessary to feel that your strong dislike for this person will last forever? Isn't it possible that they could someday become your friend? 7. Now visualize the stranger. How would you feel about them if they did something very kind for you? Isn't it the case that all your current friends were at one point total strangers? Isn't it possible that a stranger could become your best friend? It has happened before. 8. Think carefully about how everyone deserves equal regard as human beings. You must discriminate and make decisions based on your knowledge of a person's character, but you do not have to hold strong feelings or judgments towards them. It is very likely that your emotions around a person will change many times, so why hold onto these emotions so rigidly? In Buddhism, equanimity means a very deep, even profound, state of mental balance and stability. It is considered one of the seven factors of enlightenment, and a hallmark of the third and fourth jhanas, which are deep states of meditative absorption. This is a traditional meditation from Mahayana Buddhism. Its goal is to arouse "bodhicitta' or the mind of enlightenment. There are other equanimity meditations from other Buddhist lineages (e.g., Theravadan), as well as from other contemplative traditions. (The version presented here is adapted from the book How to Meditate: A Practical Guide.) CAUTIONS: It can be upsetting to bring an "enemy" to mind. When working with the mental image of an enemy, be careful not to get lost in negative thoughts and feelings. If you find that you can't handle working with a specific person without getting very worked up, switch to someone less upsetting. Body Scan Meditation The Body Scan is designed to help you feel and bring awareness to the myriad of sensations that occur throughout your body. By practicing this meditation regularly, you can improve your body awareness and also better work with pain and difficult emotions in the body. Additionally, people report feelings of relaxation and renewal after this practice. Sit or lie on your back and systematically bring your attention to each region of your body, beginning with your feet and moving upwards. As you begin: · Sit or lie down on your back in a comfortable position with your eyes open or gently closed. · Take a moment to check-in with yourself, observing how you are feeling in your body and mind. · Begin to focus on your breath wherever the sensations are most vivid for you. During the body scan: · Try to bring an attitude of curiosity to the practice, as if you are investigating your body for the first time. · Notice and feel any and all sensations that are present, such as tingling, tightness, heat, cold, pressure, dullness, etc. · If you do not feel any sensations in a particular region, simply note that and move on. · See if you can be aware of any thoughts or emotions that arise as you move through the regions of your body. Note these thoughts and emotions, and then return to the bare physical sensations that you are experiencing. · Whenever you come across an area that is tense, see if you can allow it to soften. If the area does not soften, simply notice how it feels and allow it to be as it is. · Feel as deeply and precisely as you can into each region of the body, noting if the sensations change in any way. Also notice where they are located. · If you notice any pain or discomfort in a region of the body, see if you can practice allowing and exploring it for even a few seconds, feeling the various aspects of the sensation(s). Suggested sequence of body parts: · Begin with your left foot and toes, then move awareness up the left leg until you reach the left hip. · Right foot and toes up the right leg until you reach the right hip. · Pelvic region and buttocks, stomach, low back to upper back, chest and breasts, heart and lungs · Hands (both at the same time) then move up the arms until you finish with the shoulders. · Neck, throat, jaw, mouth (teeth, tongue, lips), nose, eyes, forehead, ears, skull and scalp. · Finally, become aware of the whole body and rest for a few minutes in this expansive awareness. The Body Scan is a variation of a Burmese Vipassana meditation practice that involves scanning the body for physical sensations. This meditation is also done in various yoga practices. The Body Scan is used in Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), created by Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D. CAUTIONS: If you have experienced physical abuse or trauma in the past, it is not recommended to do this practice without a trained professional. Additionally, if you notice intense fear or other strong emotions related to a particular part of the body, please discontinue this practice. It is generally advised to take at least 30 to 40 minutes to complete the body scan. However, if you wish to do a shorter body scan, spend less time on each region of the body, and/or focus on both feet, legs, and arms together as you move through these regions. If you wish, you can practice the body scan in the opposite direction, moving from your head to your toes. Walking Meditation Walking meditation is a great way to begin integrating the power of meditation into your daily life. It is the first stage of meditation in action, that is, learning to be meditative while "out and about" in the world. It is great to do while, for example, taking a walk in the park, at the beach, or in another natural setting. Walking meditation is often recommended for people who are doing a lot of sitting meditation. If you are getting to sleepy, or your awareness is getting to "muddy," walking meditation can perk you up. Alternately, if you are getting to concentrated and mentally "stiff," walking meditation is a perfect way to loosen up a bit. Walking meditation is a common practice in Vipassana and Zen Buddhism. Pay close attention to the physical activity of walking slowly 1. Before walking, stand still in an open, balanced posture. Bring your awareness to the feeling of your feet touching the ground. 2. Now begin walking. Keep your gaze fixed on the ground about six feet in front of you. This will help you to avoid distraction. 3. Note and mentally label three parts of each step you take. The labels are "lifting," "pushing," and "dropping." Lifting - when you are picking your foot up Pushing - as you are moving it forward Dropping - as you are lowering it to the ground As you make each label, pay very close attention to the actual physical sensations associated with each of these actions. 4. After these three components become clear, you can add three more, so that the entire sequence is: "raising," "lifting," "pushing," "dropping," "touching," and "pressing." 5. Your mind will probably also engage in thinking extraneous thoughts, but just allow these to go on in the background. Your foreground attention should stay on the physical sensations of walking. 6. If you find that you have been completely lost in thought, stop walking for a moment and label the thinking as "thinking, thinking, thinking." 7. Then re-establish your awareness on the feeling in your feet, and begin the walking meditation again. 8. A typical session of walking meditation lasts a half an hour. CAUTIONS: Make sure to watch where you are going, especially if you are around traffic, other people, etc. https://sites.google.com/site/psychospiritualtools/Home/meditation-practices The Yoda Meditation https://www.thedailymeditation.com/learning-to-meditate-with-jedi-master-yoda-online-meditation-course/amp The Neo / Matrix Meditation https://www.dc-acupuncture.com/lifestyle-personal-transformation/how-meditation-makes-you-more-like-neo-from-the-matrix F That - A guided Meditation https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=92i5m3tV5XY

When we began to fall in love, we were just children. I moved to her small town as a nobody, a complete outsider. But I knew I would marry her after just a few short interactions. Five years later, after being madly in love, we decided to get married. She was my best friend. The woman that saw how broken I was from my childhood, she saw my scars and fears. And it didn't matter how fucked up my past was, or how stupid I acted in the present, she chose to heal and love me regardless. She quickly turned into my angel. The person that pulled me out of darkness over and over again. She gave me life, hope. New eyes to see through. And every step along the journey that we walked together is deeply burned into my mind and soul. I will forever love her. Her Spirit, everything about her is so beautiful. I owe her my life. And so when she began to fell in love with another man, I knew that I had to let her go. With her beautiful soul she pulled me into her journey of falling in love again. She had just began a new career as a Flight Attendant, and her transformation was incredible to watch. I had loved her when she was a young nobody wearing sweatshirts and sweatpants to school. And every day when she ate her feelings away with another pie of greasy pizza. It was easy to see her in the most beautiful light possible. Just like she had seen the light in the most horrible stories I shared with her. So as we open our relationship and she began to fall in love, I took great joy in seeing her confidence grow, regardless of my own envy. Of course there is jealousy and sometimes even hatred for what was unfolding under my control. But how could I keep her from such great entertainment. My baby became a woman. And who was I to keep her locked away from her pleasures and desires. After all, she was the soul that watched me drink and smoke my life away for how many years. She was there for me at the end of the night when I was dealing with the demons from my childhood. She was in my corner motivating me as we broke trough the many traps set by society. And we laughed at it all as we easily build something so much better, something that no one had ever seen before. But as anyone who has been in a serious relationship can confirm, its not easy to give the person that you love all that they really need. Even if we want to pretend that we can. The truth is that Marriage and Relationships are very restricting to the freedom that our body, mind and souls fully crave. She gave me the freedom to explore and fall in love with my self. And with great energy, I awoke to many beautiful realizations of what reality was. I understood that she was me, that I am God, and so many other breathtaking teaching I was blessed to receive. In many ways, all thanks to her, and her selfless love. I am indebted to her in this life, and that is something I put on my shoulders with great joy. And now as Karma bites me in the Ego ass and I watch as her body gets filled with attention and pleasures that I had neglected from her for how many years, this is only fair She is not mine. She is free to Love anyone, and be loved by whoever she wants. I can only smile as she grows and unfolds her petals across the world. Finding peace in watching her enjoy life without me has been the hardest obstacle in my life. But yet I achieved it. And when she doesn't get watered, or she can't find the energy to water her self, I will be there to care for her. Just like I am here to care for all flowers of this World. And to limit me or anyone from that, that would be selfish love. Love cannot be caged. Genuine Feedback is Welcomed.

Journal topics Am I willing to go further with spiritual growth than before? This is a good question to ask myself. I'm on a nice little streak of a solid spiritual practice, plus good growth in a lot of different areas. I have my foot on the gas and I'm not making excuses. I like to say 2015 was my year, back then I really did this same thing and really went strong for a whole year. Consistent meditation, prayer, reading, big involvement with helping others, went really deep and changed a lot of things about myself. It was like a big year of transformation. Since then I've always had some spiritual practice and awareness, but not nearly as profound. I've also made other improvements I should recognize since then. But i've never felt as connected as back then. So now that I'm almost 3 months in on a really solid spiritual practice, plus really straightening other bad habits out... I'm willing to go further. I have to commit to this as a new way of life. Somehting I can't compromise on. It is really essential to my overall well being. Beyond that I want to confront the weaker parts of my personality holding me back. A fear of not being good enough/things not working out, plus an unwilling to grow up and take on more responsibility. I'm defintiely doing okay, but I'm still clinging to these bad beliefs. Same thing with my sex ideal and what I want to work toward there. I'm still holding on to bad beliefs and limitation. I'm really in a good place and ready for a good relationship. So that just means I got to keep working on bettering myself and improving myself. And also eventually putting myself out there. Am I willing to try a "new" version of God, a new relationship with my creator, am I willing to turn my life and my problems to him? Thus far I've been making progress with this and it's working. So yes, I want to commit to this. the idea is to not just be "cool" with God but to have a better relationship and maintain connection. Part of this is offering my life to God the way some people describe it. The idea that God works through me, that I'm a channel. The idea that I can get away from self will and instead consult spirit for direction and guidance. Put the focus on what I can contribute and not on what I can get out of life or how I can arrange it to make things the way I want. This also has to do with getting rid of bad habits and problems. I want to continue to turn to God for strenght and direction. Rely on God to build the person I want to become and should be, as well as have deep sense of acceptance by God. This also has to do with my emotional and thought patterns. These are possible to change. I've seen that already with becoming more positive. I want to turn to God to direct my inner states as well. A lot of times it's really the inner states that have importance, my actions can just be a result of my thoughts/emotions. Basically, I really want to commit more. I'm in a really good spot. Even if I have days of doubt, I'm in a great spot. Especially internally. I've gotten so much stronger over the last 3 months. I'm building good habits on top of good habits. I'm almost a year no porn. My biggest problem and difficulty is still long term financial well being and fear over this an an inability to grow up. I'm facing this and working hard and I should give myself some credit... it's a LONG TERM GOAL. Day at a time I'm doing so good. I'm solving my biggest problem. My other problems are on the retreat. I'm playing life on offense. the whole point is that all of this is a result of my spiritual practice and putting that first. It really is the priority in life. If i'm not spiritually right... that means that my whole outlook on things will change and I'll think everything will suck. My job will suck, life will suck, fall back into fear, worry, self pity, doubt, etc. SO I HAVE TO KEEP MY FOOT ON THE GAS. No letting up or backing off. Spiritual practice ride or die! I can't put anything before my relationship with God.

When I started using psychedelics- shamanic medicine, slowly I started loving myself more. Like really... I used to never thing I was really attractive or anything... and like the love is so crazy that you just start loving everything about you... and so... I started really loving my hair and letting it grow out. The beard too. I used to always spend money getting a cool haircut and get worried about my hair. Its really cool because it reminds me of the "path" of not caring what people think, of the transformation you go through... Its cool to deconstruct that systemic norm of having to have your hair a certain way. People judge you sometimes and stereotype you but when you talk to them and dont judge them for judging you, and just connect person to person they start seeing your just another regular guy who just decided to let his hair grow out.

@Applegarden you are right 100% about your observation. let’s see what future will bring us. Transformation was in my cards, no joke, I mean it.

Indeed, Shunyamurti said that the deeper suffering is fear of non-being, which includes death but is even more than that. And that causes anxiety, which he said is deeper than fear. And he said that the ego lacks courage, a word derived from the word heart. The ego is disconnected from the heart, he said, and is a false self that lacks being. So the ego is a lifeless construct! And the deeper fear of non-being is an incredible trick, since the ego is already lifeless. Fear is at least about some particular things while anxiety is less specific. A good approach therefore is to become aware of the actual cause of anxiety which is a disconnected heart. Shunyamurti's explanation of the ego is very similar to A Course in Miracles. Carl Jung's definition of ego is more about how it is a necessary sense of self. And the integral perspective is that the ego needs to be transcended and also included. The ego's defenses keep blocking the heart. So that's another tricky part. An open heart means defenselessness. To the ego that means senselessness. So one should not underestimate the immensity of the transformation needed to turn the ego into a true self.

I have been very inactive in this forum for quite a while, but now it draws me back again to share this. It comes from the heart. It is more aimed at myself, I am not trying to teach anyone, these are just insights. Only looking beyond the ego won't do it. Only looking within the ego won't do it either. Bruteforcing truth upon the ego did never work for me, after all these years, be it through tedious self inquiry or 5-MeO, or whatever. And there were many deep awakenings and purification experiences nonetheless. Of course, looking into the Absolute Truth of things is most essential. When done extremely sincerely, there is love, silence, stillness revealing itself to be your essence. But seeing what you are does not make the ego surrender. I think many of you can relate when you have experiences like this: - You realize what you REALLY are. - You realize "you" have been holding yourself back all this time. - You bathe in perfection, but at some point the clouds come back, and sooner or later you're kind of lost again. One of my most strong barriers in this work has been the wish to annihilate the ego. Most of the time, this only hardened its shell. Why? Because next to all the superego voices that beat your ego up all this time, now it invents a new "spiritual" superego that is the worst of them. And with that voice, you always eventually want to kill your ego. Wanting to kill "your" ego will just make it more defensive. So this is where Personal Truth gets in, which is something shadow work should aim at clarifying. This is a very VERY important point: When the ego fully (!) understands how things really are, it will surrender without one moment of hesitation. But for that, there needs to be a clear understanding of why you suffer on a personal level. We not only suffer because we take ourselves to be something which we are not. That is the ultimate root of the problem, yes, but there is more personal, relative truth to be seen. It has to be seen. The truth is that the ego, the foundation of it, is completely innocent. To call it a devil, albeit true in a sense, is really dangerous, for it most likely introduces more superego voices (happened for me). What has to be seen is that you are a sweet little child, precious and full of beauty. All you want is to love, to play, to dance, to enjoy all things with everyone. That is your purity, even as a personality, not only as Truth itself. All the "wrong" you did is because you did not understand. So of course there is no wrong. There is no reason to ever doubt, ever second guess, or ever worry. This is so important. This can only be seen when you are connected to the love that you are, the infinite ocean of love. Only this love can give this child the understanding and compassion it needs. When the child sees its own innocence, and how it imagined all these voices some time in very early childhood, it no longer wants to believe them. Ego will choose love when it sees that that is the truth. Yes, all the layers upon the ego, they act like they don't want love, because they are internalized punishers and demanders. They are fictions. And yes, also the ego is fiction of course. But only when the ego sees it for itself, when it truly understands "Oh I see, there is only love, and that's all I ever wanted and deserved and needed. Oh, and I also see that why I'm suffering is because I believed in lies. Oooh, and I am also a lie? Well, when I have to cease so only love can remain, then I happily leave.", only then will it accept its fate. This is how surrender happens, through understanding. And of course, there is also grace. It is in no ones hands to fully understand. We can just assist our ego, with true love and gentleness (and sometimes firmness), to see what is real. And that has to include all the personal barriers, because they will remain either way, even after enlightenment. That's what many teachers call transformation. It both has to happen anyway when you want to mature. I personally found this to be extremely important to fully grasp. This is like a team effort with your ego, and at some point, it will take one for the team so to speak. And then the team as a whole readily steps into the cleansing fires, for the only aim of the team was to prepare the stage for Truth to enter.

@peanutspathtotruth I wasn't aware of those particular YouTubes, Thanks, I'll have to check those out sometime. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, This is a good article based on Phd., Episcopal Priest, Cynthia Bourgeault's articulation of the Gurdjieff Work.Iit's to the point about Three Centered Awareness becoming Three Centered knowing. In All and Everything Gurdjieff called 3 Centered Awareness,- Fulasnitamnian Awareness An expression of the Law of Three, it was pointed out to students in a Wisdom School that the Law of Three produces a Fourth,,,, a new airing. I copied and pasted the complete article from this link. It reads better with italicized highlights and dividers on the website itself, though. https://wisdomwayofknowing.org/resource-directory/three-centered-knowing/ elete Article Three-Centered Knowing Note: for a more detailed introduction to Three-Centered Knowing, see Chapter 3 of The Wisdom Way of Knowing Wisdom makes use of an ancient body of knowledge about the physiology of spiritual transformation and a methodology for increasing our “receptivity to higher meaning”. The human being can be considered “three-centered” or “three-brained.” The centers include: The Moving Center, which has 2 subsets: instinctive (like a ‘hard drive’) which regulates operational systems of the body; and moving center proper (more like ‘software’) which concerns outward and voluntary interactions with the physical world through our five senses, as well as movement and rhythm. The Emotional Center: (centered in the heart and solar plexus) This is not the seat or center of our personal affective life or our personal identity as some contemporary thinking would imply. In fact as Cynthia explains with regard to our attunement to our feelings, “The real mark of personal authenticity is not how intensely we can express our feelings but how honestly we can look at where we are coming from and spot the elements of clinging, manipulation, and personal agendas that make up so much of what we experience as our emotional life today.” Furthermore, ‘passions’ in the conventional sense of the word, actually divide the Heart (for example, over-clinging). The Heart, as the center of the emotional center, is for divine perception, serving as a bridge between our mind and body. It has the capacity to perceive paradox, the both/and. The Intellectual/Cognitive Center has a natural aptitude for reasoning, doubting, and making fine discriminations—all legitimate and necessary. But as Cynthia describes, this center has a limited capacity in spiritual life: “In terms of the spiritual journey, trying to find faith with the intellectual center is something like trying to play a violin with a saw; it’s simply the wrong tool for the job.” The path of Wisdom embraces the whole person: mind, heart, and body. The three centers working in harmony is the prerequisite for Wisdom knowing. In fact the notion of ‘sleep’ as opposed to conscious aware awakening, is an indication of finding yourself in one center only. When we are alive, balanced, and present in all three centers a higher consciousness and Presenceis available. These three centers of intelligence can serve as foundational elements around which individual or small group practices and experience is built. Paying attention to each center and weaving in opportunities to connect with each center helps cultivate three-centered awareness. Practicing Three-Centered Knowing Moving Center Practices A simple body centered exercise to practice in pairs, for noticing sensation and experiencing the resonate field of Presence: With a practice group or practice partners, take turns noticing and naming sensations in your body, each of you naming three sensations (ex: I am noticing my feet making contact with the floor, I feel tightness in my chest, there is ease in my belly). As one partner is speaking, the other is witnessing. See if you notice an energetic shift as you become more embodied. Notice times of bracing: Notice when you are in a state of bracing or grasping. Can you pause and reconnect with your heartbeat, your breath, your feet , your torso, and then return to the simple hand gestures of opening and closing, giving and receiving, being with what is. Incorporate gestures and body prayers: Try opening and closing your hands, feeling the sensations of grasping and letting go, or even try a full body prostration (as described in The Wisdom Way of Knowing, chapter 3). Emotional Center Practices Sacred Chanting wakes up the emotional center with sound, and can deepen the connectivity of the group. Try familiar Taize chants—freely available to listen and follow online. There is also a growing body of Wisdom chants pioneered by Darlene Franz, which can also be accessed online (see references and resource list below). Lectio Divina: can be practiced with any short piece of sacred text or passage. There are a variety of ways to approach this practice. Here is one suggestion: Start slowly reading a passage aloud, and allow yourself to be drawn to a sentence, a phrase, or even a single word that seems to attract your attention. Read the passage again slowly, quietly allowing your faculties (your reason, your imagination, or emotions) to begin to work with this passage. This is about a “heart to heart” encounter with the text…it will be different every time. Read a final time, resting in the sacred presence, and in deep receptivity with the experience. (Some groups may decide to include a period of centering prayer at this stage, as an alternative to meditating before or after the lectio.) As you feel complete with the first three steps, take turns sharing what you noticed or what became alive for you or impacted you from the passage. Many Wisdom groups begin by using The Gospel of Thomas in a Lectio Divina format. Intellectual/Cognitive Center Practices Whether as a personal individual practice, or in a small group, consider what material or area of interest might provide fruitful exploration. Some suggestions are: Discussing parts or chapters from Cynthia’s books, or books or readings from other Wisdom writers Taking one or a few Gospel of Thomas logions (passages) for discussion References and Resources: Books by Cynthia Bourgeault (Cynthia has many published books, and the following provide some specific references to Wisdom practices including those mentioned above): The Wisdom Way of Knowing The Wisdom Jesus Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening Chanting the Psalms The Gospel of Thomas by Lynn Bauman The Gospel of Thomas or other e-courses from Spirituality and Practice Wisdom Chant resources by Darlene Franz

@LfcCharlie4 I think you're making very good points here. Even when the I-thought is literally absent, there can be a tendency which will still happen. So these things need to be adressed. But there is also another point, which is very subtle but important: When we talk about what we're doing here, it's not really only awakening. Most of us (I hope) don't see an end point. We are embarking on the endless journey of maturation as a Godly being, whatever that means. There is naturally also personal transformation that is necessary. We are even a personal vessel for God, even though we are not identified with it. And that will have to be worked through. Awakening(s) are very specific insights into the nature of reality. They don't magically erase everything else. So when some speak about awakening, they mean the whole thing: maturation, fulfilling our full purpose. Others really only mean enlightenment. Looking at teachers, I see a clear correspondence between this complete view of the work and how the teacher is embodying it.

Apparently the Netherlands are potentially entering into the 2nd tier (as a society). I haven't found a great many resources online for describing this, but I do find this David Brooks article on the NYT to be suggestively interesting: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/opinion/scandinavia-education.html "They look at education differently than we do. The German word they used to describe their approach, bildung, doesn’t even have an English equivalent. It means the complete moral, emotional, intellectual and civic transformation of the person. It was based on the idea that if people were going to be able to handle and contribute to an emerging industrial society, they would need more complex inner lives." "Today, Americans often think of schooling as the transmission of specialized skill sets — can the student read, do math, recite the facts of biology. Bildung is devised to change the way students see the world. It is devised to help them understand complex systems and see the relations between things — between self and society, between a community of relationships in a family and a town." “Bildung is the way that the individual matures and takes upon him or herself ever bigger personal responsibility towards family, friends, fellow citizens, society, humanity, our globe, and the global heritage of our species, while enjoying ever bigger personal, moral and existential freedoms.” "Their intuition was that as people grow, they have the ability to go through developmental phases, to see themselves and the world through ever more complex lenses. A young child may blindly obey authority — Mom, Dad, teacher. Then she internalizes and conforms to the norms of the group. Then she learns to create her own norms based on her own values. Then she learns to see herself as a node in a network of selves and thus learns mutuality and holistic thinking." It's pretty amazing, actually, that an entire society has figured all that out. Meanwhile, we in the USA are stuck with the comparatively adolescent Libertarian view of "greed is good" and "every man for himself".

Same = Same = Same Yogananda - Ra material - Acim Yogananda said the second coming of Christ would be the widespread development/ arrival of Christ Consciousness in humanity. Christ Consciousness The projected consciousness of God immanent in all creation. In Christian scripture, the "only begotten son," the only pure reflection in creation of God the Father; in Hindu scripture, Kutastha Chaitanya or Tat, the universal consciousness, or cosmic intelligence, of Spirit everywhere present in creation. (The terms "Christ Consciousness" and "Christ Intelligence" are synonymous, as also "Cosmic Christ" and "Infinite Christ.") It is the universal consciousness, oneness with God, manifested by Jesus, Krishna, and other avatars. Great saints and yogis know it as the state of samadhi meditation wherein their consciousness has become identified with the divine intelligence in every particle of creation; they feel the entire universe as their own body. -- Read more: http://yogananda.com.au/g/g_christ_consciousness.html#top The Holy Idea which acts as a catalyzer for the transformation of this ego is Holy Love/ Divine Love. This can lead to the Virtue (energy) of Action. According to Ichazo, Divine Love is as he describes “The awareness that though the laws which govern reality are objective, they are not cold, because these cosmic laws inevitably lead to the creation of organic life, and Life itself, like all natural phenomena, fulfills a cosmic purpose. As soon as the mind’s word mechanism is destroyed, love, the natural condition of the mind, appears. Love begins the moment man contemplates the Creation and says, ‘Thank you, God.’ All men feel this somewhat, no animal can feel this at all. Man alone can know that all comes from God.” This odd quote, just above from Ichazo about the when mind's word mechanism being destroyed begins the chapter on Holy Love in my favorite book on the Enneagram. AH Almaas's Facets of Unity. Divine Love is at point nine on the Enneagram. Love is the virtue. Sloth is the passion at point nine. The mind's word mechanism being destroyed sounds like being in a state of inner quiet.

I think it is fun...no more no less. Hope my tarot reader was right, LOL She saw some kind of transformation coming.

One miracle that may seem like incredible woo woo is the transformation of the human body to a fourth density body that the Law of One talks about. It's the same as the change of the body of flesh in a twinkle of an eye to a resurrection body described in the Bible. Such transformation actually seems possible to me. Third density is a result of the complexity on our planet still being too low generally for fourth density to emerge. Then as the complexity increases (reality is ever increasing complexity), the miracle of transforming the body of flesh into a fourth density body becomes possible. And the transformation can happen quickly, just as it says in the Bible. Higher complexity means higher density. And the Law of One mentions that there are several levels of density within each level. The bigger leaps, such as from third to fourth density will happen at a certain threshold. When the complexity reaches above the threshold, then boom, transformation happens. But just because an evolutionary leap like that happens doesn't mean that we will instantly get superpowers. It's likely more like how when a chick hatches from an egg. The newly hatched chick isn't that much different initially than it was inside the egg, and it takes time for the chick to grow and learn how to interact in the new environment.

Miracles can greatly speed up dissolving the pain body. Although as ACIM says, miracles should be involuntary. That's logical since miracles go beyond mere simplistic cause and effect from past to future which is the ego perspective. So I can't muster up a miracle by using my own thinking, but I can expect miracles to speed up the transformation of the pain body. In fact, ACIM says that miracles are natural and should be expected, something like that.

3 phases of Self-transformation: 1. Dis-identification from the Personality through self-observation Through meditation, contemplation, psychedelics, etc. create the inner "space" in which to watch myself, thereby creating a separation between my witnessing consciousness and the habits and patterns that I observe. The higher up I go, the more clearly the patterns are seen. The defenses are loosened and the fear of losing the comfort of a Personality-construct arises. Practice: Questioning my life story. Reading type descriptions, highlighting what clicks and contemplating the universality of those elements. (My life story is not so unique after all) Watching my habit loops (Cue -> Routine -> Reward). Noticing my emotional triggers. Set up hourly chime and log every hour - with honesty and non-judgment. Pointers that I am on the right path: Humility. More aligned with the natural rhythms of body-mind, less attached to my ideas. More Flow, less resistance. 2. Surrendering to the fear and emotional suffering associated with loosening ego defenses As the hold of personality starts loosening, allowing myself to experience the emotional territory underneath my defenses in a conscious way in order to integrate my shadow and move forward in my evolution. By allowing myself to recognize your unconscious patterns and feel the emotions my Personality has helped me avoid, I release considerable energy that I have been (unconsciously) expending to keep my defenses in place. Practice: Being a superconductor of emotions yet being able to detach from them. 'Checking in' on my body with an hourly chime and letting go of any tension consciously. Working through complex memories / emotional triggers by writing them out in detail. Pointers that I am on the right path: Emotional discomfort that turns into wisdom with love and acceptance. Feeling lighter and more alive every passing day. Reduced self-sabotaging behaviors. Alignment of thought, emotion, speech, and action. 3. Actively working towards transcendence and Union Being in a more conscious, integrated state. Develop a greater ability to call on the strategies and strengths of all nature's archetypes instead of just being preoccupied with one way of doing things. Practice: Contemplating the food cycle. Contemplating death. Contemplating Archetypes. Pointers that I am on the right path: Creating more yet being emotionally detached from what I create. Immediate awareness of multiple POVs of looking at a situation and all the actions I can take (including not taking any action at all) instead of automatically doing what I have always done. Sense of inner completeness "wholeness". A sense of connectedness with everyone and everything. A sense of constant expansion.

As a rule, i don't preach self-development for those around me, this is often futile and a waste of time. The best way is to change yourself so much that those who are ready can approach you to ask for advice. It is tough, I must have spent hundreds of hours trying to convert people into self-development and I had almost zero success with this approach. Sometimes, though, i met people randomly and they notice something in me that is inspiration worthy and that moved them into transforming themselves. An example of what i am talking about: once upon a time, i was living in a hostel, i entered the living room, there was some people there, including some guests, i just sat there and talked a bit. One guy noticed that i had a intriguingly calm energy and started to ask me questions, i told him that i was a Hatha yoga teacher and stuff like that, we chatted a little and i left. Days later, he messages me telling me that it was a pleasure meeting me, he loved my energy and because of that meeting, he started to practice Hatha yoga every day, a few weeks later and he was still consistent about it. So, a random guy had a random short interaction with me that motivated him to start a yoga practice, while i have tons of friends and family members that i spent soo many hours trying to inspire them without any success. The moral of the story is: you can't really control, much less change anyone, you can only change and control yourself, and if you do it in a smart way, you will trigger a transformation in those who are ready (most people aren't).

I posted some of Gurdjieff's sayings on his page in High Consciousness Resources. Here are two- Humanity is the earth’s nerve-endings through which planetary vibrations are received for transmission. Conscious love evokes the same in response. Emotional love evokes the opposite. Physical love depends on type and polarity. Faith of consciousness is freedom. Faith of feeling is slavery. Faith of body is stupidity. Hope of consciousness is strength. Hope of feeling is cowardice. Hope of body is disease. Conscious suffering is the medicine to make the Automaton surrender to the Permanent Witness. The Automaton is an instrument. The Permanent Witness has to learn how to use it. This process comes into being with man number four. From http://www.higherbeingbodies.com/a-dialogue-with-ocke.html Witness Consciousness is the same thing as the Permanent Witness. To become the Permanent Witness requires one to see how one changes emotionally every five minutes day after day. The most spiritually asleep will insist the most that they have continuity of Consciousness. If you try to wake them up they most likely will try to project things onto you and/or attempt push your buttons or sometimes mean-mouth you. I'm a little bit awake but not awake enough to try and wake up others and catch all or some of their bullshit. This is all just a way of framing it. The above is not meant to be aimed at anyone.Its just a statement of my understanding which stays in a state of slow transformation. I'm also a bullshiting animal,,, This is not a belief system or an ideology. It's about you working on yourself and making contact with the inner part of your centers. Don't be triggered by my framework of words. See if it applies to you or just disregard and turn away if you wish. That's fine too. Sometimes I'm an unguided projectile. If emotional, an unguided Golum,,, Man #1 Man #2 and man #3 are asleep. Woman is also Man. Man #4 has become balanced and is capable of Witness Consciousness. Man #5 has continuity of Consciousness. I've heard Jesus was Man #7. The Pearl beyond Price is experienced beginning around Man #5 Hameed said- "You can stand totally alone, completely independent of all that comes through the mind, through time and space. This station of realization is difficult and rare. Most of us don’t have the nerve to lose our minds. Although terrifying, it is necessary for true freedom." I like Arnold Keyserling's phrase about "smashing false seriousness with a joke". To me he's describing someone who can be lighthearted the way Hameed Ali Almaas, Maurice Nicoll and Ocke de Boer sometimes are. Nicoll's description of Monkey mind. Nicoll psychological commentaries page 683. Have you got sufficient inner observation? Have you cleared and well dug a big space in your mind through the practice of inner attention and put a hedge round it and a gate so that you can hear the click of the gate and watch this darling little thought coming up the drive all ready to say: “Oh, how tired I am,” etc.? I fancy that once we let it in very far every thought gets hold of us and wrings us, takes our blood, makes us react, talk, behave, in a certain way, and then, satisfied with having dined off us, it retires for a time. Or my two favorites of Ocke's- "This is the difference between us and the angels. Angels are perfectly made and, therefore, naive and stupid; they can only do what they are made for. Humans have many more possibilities. There is more joy in heaven for one perfected human being than for a thousand angels." "If you could float above the earth and become aware of all the negativity that is going on, you would never laugh again. The world is ruled by negative emotions." Since I'm reposting my favorite quotes, here is one that's not funny but very pertinent. “The repetitive motion of finding oneself through Identification (even true and worthy descriptions) keeps the being energy just below the critical velocity needed to escape the gravitational field of narrative selfhood.” - Cynthia Bourgeault