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Life Purpose & Stopping to Get Rid of Pain So I got this huge intutive hit yesterday about turning my whole Life Purpose to something related to Theater. I got really excited, and I know that this excitement will pass. As George Leonard says, true growth occurs with short spurs of progress and long periods that you feel you’re going nowhere. I freaking love the feeling that I have had for the past two days, but I know how much I can suffer if I get attached to them. But, hell, I am happy that something changed. I had been focusing on Tai Chi Chuan very heavily this past month to develop the effortless power. And now my new fetiche is for theater ahah. I am scared that I might get overly-excited and screw things up. Cause when I do something too much, I get aversed to it even though I love it. Happened to me with meditation, with yoga, with singing, with weighlifting. I love those things. They take me out of my “boring” world, especially yoga. So, for this reason, I sometimes I overdo those things as a way to escape my reality. But deep down I feel like if I am meant to be to exaggerate with theater, so be it. And then, a different thing will appear. Nothing wrong with that. Just wanna make sure that I don’t get too euphoric, cause I know that it leads to depression later on. But, anyway, the thing I want to talk about today is another insight I had about a week ago. I had heard it before, but now I fully understood it through direct experience. To put simply, do not try to get rid of pain; relax into it instead. So the thing is, avoiding pain generates more pain. You can certainly do things that will alleviate it, but you should never approach pain with the attitude of “getting rid” of it. If it is there, it’s to teach you something. And this fight against pain will never end because pain is part of life. Thich Nhat Hahn talks a lot about that. He says that western medicine, for example, is very surgery-oriented. Any problem is an excuse to make a surgery. Always trying to fix. The same thing has happened in psychotherapy. The therapist tries to remove the problems of the person. But that doesn’t work. Instead, he says, we should learn the art of transformation. Lotus flower, anyone? A year ago I was taking a very hardcore, masculine, and neurotic approach to pain. I would challenge it. I’d feel an ache in my chest (like I usually do), I’d tell it, “Go ahead, Pain! Show me what you got!” A lot of people here on the Actualized.org community does that in Strong Determination Sittings. But that doesn’t work. We should treat our bodies with a lot of patient and softness. Otherwise it will not respond well, but rebel against you sooner or later. Being aligned with my purpose makes pain management go way down my priority list. When nothing is going on in my life, any emotional or physical pain is very alarming. But when I am having a blast and I can hold a firm and detailed VISION of what my future will look like 10 years down the line, the pain of today doesn’t even come to mind. At the same time, I know that sometimes my body forces me to rest the fuck down due to overtraining. But I want to find my true passion, the thing that I don’t even care if I overpractice. I might fall on my ass, but when I am ready, I will get back to it. Is that theater? IDK. But definitely something related to Art. So, anyway, been trying to get my values straight this year. This will help me guide my self. Ourselves… Our cells… We are our cells. We are ourselves. And, finally, I feel like true healing starts happening when you stop trying to get rid of pain, but when you genuinely are interested in understanding the pain. I thought of something else to write, but I am experimenting with writing less. Yay!

Hey, My respond was more like a pointer to how shitty the financial system still is today, even shittier! Hitler did absolutely the right thing on this subject. STRONG forces were agains him. That was just amazing how quick the economy raised, and unemployment rates dropped! And a huge optimism and positive outlook as a result. And quite amazing transformation of infrastructure, ahead of its time. He should be admired for this, but he never will of course, just by people like you and me who like to dig deep into what really happened and how things really unfolded. I remember when I as a young boy visited a was cabinet and come face to face with Hitler. I was chocked, because even a model of him revealed some of his good character and integrity! Total contradictory to what the man was told to be by teachers and schoolbooks. But for me it will be hard to respect a person that lead a county responsible for the Holocaust, even if official version isn't fully correct, I think it's somewhat true. May I ask you how you view the Holocaust? Do you believe in the official version, because if you do, you must have pretty hard time to admire a man like Hitler?

Well, that's the system we use today, loan with interests and fractional banking which means that banks can give loans with money they don't have, only to collect "free" interest money. And central banks can print new money on basically arbitrary grounds. Which leads to bubbles and inflations that cause ordinary people to lose buying power. Back in the 40's, currencies where backed up by another assets, like gold. The financial system got worse in the 70s when Nixon choose to break the gold back up for the dollar. Before that, you were guaranteed to exchange dollars to a certain amount gold whenever you liked. After that, the dollar had value only because people decided so, only because of empty trust basically. Later US "forced" oil producing counties to sell their oil for US dollar and not for other currencies, that way the dollar got some back up again. Many start using the name "Petrodollar" This has nothing to do with the subject here really. I just wanted to mention this in order to explain that the financial systems haven't got better over time, it's rather the other way around. A financial system with paper money that is centralised can never be fair, no matter if jews or other groups of people are ahead and run these systems. That's why cryptocurrencies can be a huge positive transformation for society. *No third part(banks) are needed. *The coins are numbered to a certain amount, and more coins of them can never be created. Thus humans are safe from losing purchasing power to inflation and economic bubbles. *Last but not least, cryptocurrencies are Decentralised, which means that authorities are cut out from power and control over the financial means. Blockchain technology which cryptocurrencies are build upon is really revolutionary. You see what I'm saying here?

Future is now. The future stays the same or gets only worse unless fundamental change of pattern takes place in consciousness or our “individual” everyday lives. If we are not aware of thought as a process then these problems of detachment, division, conflict in relationship, being local, national, political, religious, cultural and so on, then things will never get better and will inevitably get worse. Science, religion, political ideas, or any other form of outward imposition will not solve this problem of relationship. Any attempt to bring about order in society through self centered “the me and my security” thinking will only make things worse. It absurd that one would actually think that taking a drug could bring about such order. Such an idea has already disproved itself just amongst the general crowd in this forum. It’s an obvious prepetual mechanical movement of becoming which is a thought induced “self centered” activity that leads only to self deception. And it’s also self evident that taking psychodelics don’t bring about a fundamental transformation in conflict and relationship. People on this forum take them on what seems to be, by reading various posts, a regular basis and this seems to be nothing other than a habitual crutch to experience something different and out of the ordinary daily routine. It’s apperent and so easily observable that the division in ourselves and in our everyday life is projected actually through the communication within this forum. People people constantly arguing to fuel there own self image and claiming absurdities to bring about a sense of respectability and righteousness in opposition to another. So it’s obvious that these drugs are not the answer. As long as this doesn’t change well everything will stay as it is or will only worsen. If we care about our own ambitions, projected attainments, and needs to become psychologically secure, there will be nothing but division, confusion, contradiction, and conflict. So the only way to bring about a change is obviously for us to change our own patterns of thought. Which means understand that very process as the self. There is no other way. Know one else can change you. If we all change oursleves then the society changes. Reincarnation?? When we die others are born. And when they are born others die. In knowing there is no you and I, but that that only takes place in thought we see that you are as much as me as I am you. So this is an obvious fact that when I die I will come back in another life form or another, because life is life. So there are consequences for everything thing that we do now. So this goes along with the idea on reincarnation. What I do or don’t do now determines the outcome in “my” next life. If we continue in this petty, superficial, immature manner of self sentered action or non action, it’s only obvious that are next life as a me, I, or it, will suffer those consequences. So reincarnation in that sense seems totally obvious and not even debatable. So if we see that unless we bring about a revolution in our oursleves then life for any future being will ultimately be a experience of suffering. Question is do we want to do what’s necessary to create a better environment for oursleves/others? Thought is the very reason for this disorder and disfunction in the world. Can we become aware of its process which means can we become aware of the processes of the self?

How do we evaluate and using which mechanisms of logic do we validate or discard the presented reality? The answer is that we don't, we can't there is no separation between being and it's evaluation, You are yourself precisely as a consequence of evaluation. You cannot exist if these two elements were separable, When one thing becomes the mirror of the other unity emerges. By evaluation here i mean the broader and more abstract form of it, the way we see that life is a series of decisions based on making distinctions, And evaluation is the process of arbitrarily putting labels of descriptive information and value on nothing. You think it's only being and you've made and evaluation, You think it's all evaluation and you've made a mistake. You're neither, God is in a category of it's own he slips from nothingness by being no thing and in the same time slips from everything by also being no thing. That is the only category Get a grip on the real world Throw a rock at your stagnant self, Announce the revolution. What are you but transformation ? Collect yourself and remember That without aim you are all potential yet none And that with one you become one. You think you see the rose? You are the rose You think you are the rose ? You're nothing, an after glow A Fragrence There is only the rose Blooming expression.

Transformation now please. Change will happen. Life is short. I am curious. Change now!

Perhaps this is a foolish question, but isn't suicide then the fastest way to enlightenment? Not if there is a movement of becoming. That’s the point. What this word enlightenment points to is a ceasing of becoming. The psychological entity I call the me is a movment in time/thought. The self “thought” and it’s fragmentary and divisive nature within the psychological field breeds conflict and desire. Any movement of desire is a movement of thought. If desire must cease to reach this “enlightenment” then how can the pursuit in becoming bring this transformation about? Do u see this friend?

I obviously am not very disciplined regarding my journal. Might as well just stop it. I have a little bit of stagnation time again. The stagnation that I am talking about is absolutely on a different level than it was ever before. The only thing that changed are my expectations. My focus fortunately goes forward. I dont really spend time blaming others or getting lost in negative past experiences. Thats really a big thing for me. So much capacities freed of stupid shit. Next stop: Youtube, god dammit. Youtube? I dont need you. You are television. You are television. I stopped watching television a while ago. Why should I replace television with youtube? It makes no sense. Transformation now!

Thank you all. Thank you very much. You spend very valuable thing - your time for me here. I appreciate it. I dont know how somebody without this forum, psychotherapists can recover (or get enlightened). I have millions questions. But I will stop asking them in here. Just last questions and that is all. I will sometimes come to this forum to read, but not to ask question. Yesterday at night in my bed I was existing in pain and fear. But at the same time I was not scared of fear. I thought (or became aware, I dont know the difference) they will not be able to kill me. At most I can die of starvation, because I had a lump in my throat and was non-stop dry-heaving. My brain seemed to explode and I was not sure if I was in my mind or in the now. I personally dont feel that being in the now alleviates my pain. Even in the now I feel on the guard not to go to inside mind again. Yesterday at night I was suffering, but existing in the now. And was expecting enlightenment to happen. I was in the now, but the ego, the pain, the pus was inside me as well. And also coping with state, acting mindfully, I was praising myself and bragging "I am brave", "I am so special", "I found the way" and so on (this was beyond my control). And I was comparing my state to the state of Echart Tolle and questioning if this is enlightenment, transformation or etc. I think I should drop this enlightenment issue, because it seems to become the desire of my ego. (Especially I see enlightenment as revolution, not evolution and starting to make it a new mission.) I will see my psychotherapist on Wednesday. If she wants to prescribe antidepressants, I want to refuse it. Anyways as soon as I come to the end of antidepressant treatment (when the amount has substantially decreased), I start to feel terrible again. What do you advise? Should I drink or not drink anti-depressants? It is weird for me, how can substance make you feel good, if feeling good, happiness is a spiritual thing. Is enlightenment just the big amount of serotonin, dopamine, endorphin and etc? Why do people practice so hard then? Better to research hard to invent medicine, consumption of which will make you enlightened, as what matters is chemical procedures in your brain. Is recovering from this psychological disorder and having a happy life the same with enlightenment? If not, which one should I pursue? I will come and read your answers (of course you are not obliged to answer, you have answered a lot of questions, thanks). But I will not write. Because I write in autopilot and dont want any questions left unwritten, it all takes me to my mind again. Take care.

I agree with OP that science is the best tool to discover the truth of reality. Its biggest problem as far as your own life is concerned, however, is that it could take centuries before another big paradigm breakthrough that comes nearer to explaining the truths explored in the spiritual communities. Therefore, it seems sensible to undertake your own journey of truth seeking, rather than hoping that somebody else will work it out for you! Ian's pet theories (nothing said past here is anything but wild speculation): My current pet theory is some sort of combination of quantum mechanics and string theory. The universe itself is fundamentally nothingness/awareness/membrane, in which there is the potential to create infinite energy. As far as I'm aware, this energy is either light or matter, with the relevant formulae being E=hf and E=mc^2. You are an aspect of the infinite light (the soul?), contained within a body of matter. In order to increase your energy, you would have to increase your vibrational frequency. This is why you often hear things like "raise your vibration" within certain spritual teachings. Why the light of the universe should want to increase its energy, I do not know, but it seems like higher energy is perceived by the body to be 'positive': it brings joy, gratitude, peace and love etc. As for how energy is created, I have no idea. I've heard that Nikola Tesla supposedly unlocked the secrets to unlimited, free energy, but I do not know this for a fact. Given the first law of thermodynamics, this would imply that the universe is not an isolated system, or that the law is simply wrong. In quantum mechanics you learn that not all energies are accessible, and that waveforms can only take on certain discrete energy levels. This could explain why progress is usually long plateaus and then sudden 'aha' moments, as your energy leaps up to the next level. According to M-theory, the universe is made up of 11 dimensions (other theories have slightly different numbers). I can't pretend to know much about this, but you can find sources that talk about the fifth dimension being that of Christ or Buddha consciousness, the sixth and seventh being Melchizedek consciousness, and the ninth being Metatron consciousness. In the absence of scientific understanding, it makes sense that humans would do their best to fill the gaps with spiritual understandings. And in fact, it is my understanding that the Earth is currently undergoing a transformation from 3D/4D to 5D. But that's another story... It is a fallacy to suggest that 'everyone is right', but in my experience, it's rare that any major school of thought or truth is 100% false. I always seek to integrate different understandings together to form a cohesive whole.

What happens now? The real self-actualisation starts now! As Peter Ralston says, real transformation is only possible when there is no identification with a persona anymore. You can then without so much resistance change the parts about your personality, emotions, body, etc. that you want to change. And of course with this Enlightenment, it probably won't change Leo's Life Purpose, it will probably deepen his resolve and commitment even more. So maybe we can expect some serious new and awesome things added to actualized.org.

Explain how "love seems (to) be outside the realm of willful intent". Is love conditional? Well, there are characteristics that constitute what love is, they are not the same that are fear, so there are conditions that make love what love is. If you are asking is there unconditional love as far as extending and receiving it, or conditions that love can exist in then always loving is conditional since always is a condition of it being it. So unconditional love is on the condition of always loving otherwise it isn't unconditional love, ironically. I'm not sure what you mean by "in accordance to subjectivity" although if you are asking can love be subjectively assessed or is it always an objective assessed state then if it can only be objectively assessed then that would be another condition of unconditional love... so we would have to consider if unconditional love is even a thing if 'always' and 'objectively' are conditions of love. But please clarify, maybe I misunderstand you. In my own experience love is a multifaceted thing not easily defined, some of it is cultural, some biological, some ideological and some abstract so I guess I would need to understand how someone is defining 'love' to address specific concerns but for my own path i have seen transformation in my life using love in different forms of it.

@zazed There is no transformation or change the first you can do to become everything. How do you know? I think maybe you’re elaborating on what Jo is presenting. I think he’s looking for the resolve, or ‘how it is these two are in fact one’? Let me know if I’m wrong about that @Joseph Maynor @SOUL How is that a paradox?

There is no contradiction, because you are talking about two different definitions of you. The first you is what we consider our selves, as sentient beings, our mind, body, self. The second you is a different you that has no self, this you is everything. It includes the first you, because it is limitless. The first you in your question can never become everything. it will always be a limited perspective. There is no transformation or change the first you can do to become everything. A character in a storybook cannot become its author. The author is the author.

@Joker1111 sure there were bunch of full body orgasms that werent awful. Gotta say I havent experienced the possible awfulness ive seen people struggle with. Some symptoms that make life reaaally difficult. Most of my symptoms have been psychological. I am aware that I have been fortunate enough to be able to surrender to the inner transformation taking place to a high enough degree, which makes things much easier. Fun experience was in december when my consciousness descended into my heart and I viewed the world from heart’s perspective. So much intimacy everywhere. Another fun experience was when a bolt of energy shot from my gut into my heart and I exploded into pieces of bliss and love. Is that what you were asking for?

The Power is In Our Breath! So, by this, I do NOT mean that we should be forcing our breaths all the time. Obviously this will backfire. Our diafragma, for example, is eventually gonna get tired. No, we do not want that. Instead, let us focus on a more tranquil breath. This is called Eupineia, the standard breathing. No muscle effort at all. Remember: breath-work is just like going to gym. If you wanna be the highly unstrategic rabbit, go ahead and overdo. But, if you are like me, and you want to become a Wise Turtle, then let us start small but in the right direction. In fact, the theme of forcing the muscles of the breath is recurrent to me. When I get a glimpse of how amazing I can feel through breath control, I easily get attached to practicing over and over again. It sucks because it backfires. It is just like watering a plant. You don’t do it all the time. Or else you screw the whole process. Anyway, here is my advice: focus on acquiring total body relaxation. Your breath will auto-correct. [You must always remember that your spine should be as upright as possible (but relaxed). And, really, your whole body should be jelly-like, but with some tone.] I hope you get the key point in here: Tai Chi has done this metamorphosis with me. 7 months in, and, MAN! It is such a gradual -- but profound -- transformation happening . Yes, my ego is backlashing crazily as I mentioned yesterday. But at the same time, I have little gaps of what is about to unfold. I see how everything is fitting in the big picture. The big picture is all that matters. Everything will make sense. Well, just some stupid words that came up to my mind… Ppl, please do not overdo. Whatever it is you’re doing in your spiritual practice, DO NOT overdo it.

@Philipp Well, other than the contradiction in your words it just doesn't seem like you were doing self help anyway, it appears you were listening to others talk about their own experience. Yet, I will agree it is common that people talk quite a bit about abstract ideas that are complicated and are hard to apply to one's own life. Although, watching videos or reading about other people's experiences and ideas isn't actually doing your own inner work, if you had done any you would have at least some change noticeable even if it may not be a huge transformation just yet. So, sure, stop watching videos and reading if you are stagnating on that but actually start doing inner work, that will have an effect. Besides, even if you don't do any personal work that doesn't mean you aren't changing, we always change, it only means the change that is happening is molded largely by others input randomly and your own influence in those changes is little to non-existent.

Here are some points worth exploring 1) Wim hof breathing sets followed by push-ups provide energy burst right in the moment. The brain/body fog and clutter seems to go away. 2) I think I first heard this from Tony Robbins. ENERGY BEGETS ENERGY. Stay physically active all throughout the day. Don't sit at one place more than 30 minutes straight (expect for contemplation work). Make 5-10 minutes of mini exercise routines. Do that 2-3 times a day. It can keep you energetically active all throughout the day. 3) You are going through a wonderful transformation in your life from inside out. So be patient. The body-mind mechanism is adjusting with the new, healthy inputs you are consciously taking. 4) Cut all unnecessary thought. The more mindful I get, the more I realize how much horseshit I fantasize throughout the day thus deplete energy and go in a downward energy spiral.

The relationship is to be used skillfully (assuming it is a correct relationship to begin with for such purposes as self-refinement). I cannot see how one can evolve but through relationships. Realizing the inability to detach is indicative of having something to work with!! Woohoo!! Work with just that. Absolutely. The most powerfully transformative relationships I have had have not only celibate, but were virtually wordless and spanned thousands of days apiece. No, they were not at all anonymous, they were extremely intense, and not at all private affairs. Amazing, wondrous transformation by virtue of such relationships.

@How to be wise He is not only wrong, misleading and even discouraging people in a sense by saying 99% of people die during enlightenment, but he also claims that in his own ashram he pegs people down (people who are kriya yogis, according to him) when they are about to reach enlightenment so that they don't die. And this is what started my whole criticism about him in the last few months.. In the process of doing that, I found many other things, which is a long story... Don't worry, if anybody dies at the time of enlightenment, it is a rare exception.. It is not even 1%... definitely not 99% Make sure you read the following word by word because if you are Sadhguru's follower, you will feel a strong tendency to defend him, you may lose awareness for a moment, assume what is written below without fully reading it and may want to refute what I am saying without fully understanding it. The best thing for me to do here is to post an answer that I wrote in Quora. The question which was asked was "How many enlightened persons has Isha Foundation produced through its methods? " Good question! I had attended programs in Isha, attended Sadhguru’s satsangs a few times and I lived in Coimbatore for two years… I know Sadhguru since 2004 and I would like to answer this question. Let me first tell you something that Sadhguru says, which is very important for you to know: It is also written in cover of the book ‘Enlightenment - An inside story’ And in the same book he also says the following: So what do you get from this? In spite of the practitioners of Isha yoga being kriya yogis, they will still leave the body (die) when they get enlightened. But Sadhguru will not let them die but peg them down so that they don’t reach enlightenment. Or he will let it happen only when they reach a certain age. But for some reason, Sadhguru was not able to do this for Viji, his wife.(He wasn’t able to peg her down and she left her body before the consecration of Dhyanalinga). This is ridiculous!.Read this for further info: https://ksmphanindra.wordpress.com/2017/11/02/the-controversial-death-of-sadhgurus-wife-vijji/ But I know how Sadhguru got such an idea about enlightenment. He got it from Osho: In the above excerpt, Osho has stated that most of the people die during the moment of enlightenment and only very rarely few people survive. Sadhguru simple repeated Osho as he always does. Please read this answer if you need a solid evidence for the fact that he repeats Osho most of the time: Sadhguru and Osho But Osho is known for his contradictions. What Sadhguru didn’t realize is that he stated the exact opposite which is published in a different book: Osho simply confuses people so that people don’t believe in anything.I have elaborated why he contradicts himself many times: https://www.quora.com/Why-did-Osho-give-contradictory-statements-at-different-times/answer/Shanmugam-P-12 But what Sadhguru says is not true at all. Let me explain a few things first. I myself went through a transformation in 2014, but I don’t call it enlightenment. I have a reason for it. When I use the word ‘enlightenment’, it only points to a concept you have about enlightenment in your mind. But what happened to me blew my mind and it was nowhere related to whatever I thought about enlightenment. The words like ecstasy, bliss or peace are not the right words to describe the reality that I am living in right now. Thats why Lao Tzu said ‘The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao’.. The more complicated theories are used to describe the absolute reality, the less they sound like the experience of it. My seeking completely ended in 2014. There was nothing to seek anything any longer. At that point, I could no longer doubt ‘Am I enlightened’ but I doubted ‘Is this enlightenment?’.. There is a difference between these two questions.. The first question ‘Am I enlightened’implies that there is still a personal limited self which is asking this question. But whatever happened to me completely broke the mental boundaries between ‘me’ and the ‘world’… There was no one to get enlightenment in the first place. But I still couldn’t stop wondering ‘Is this enlightenment’. This second question is related to the concept of enlightenment that I had all along. It didn’t fit with that concept at all. So many things happened after that and I couldn’t understand why. Usually I was very happy and energetic at work and I received some compliments from my colleagues like ‘You are the happiest man in the world’, ‘You are the only one here who is working joyfully’, ‘You are the only one who comes to work happily and goes home happily’… But I also went through some occasional mental pain and I was also faced with some old patterns of thoughts from time to time. In fact, at one point, there was an extreme mental anguish which lasted for a couple of months. But none of them touched my inner core and none of them left a trace in my psyche. I couldn’t explain these moments of occasional mental pain because neither Osho nor Sadhguru explained anything about what happens at this stage. And I never labelled my way of functioning as ‘enlightenment’ because it is just a word and it didn’t mean anything to me. After 2014 , the next three years passed like a cakewalk, as if nothing happened. Except for those occasional painful moments, my life was certainly a blessing. But I didn’t think anything about spirituality those days.. The extreme mental anguish that I talked about which lasted for a couple of months actually happened during September 2016. Only at that point, I actually started thinking what exactly happened and where I can find some explanation for it. I studied the scriptures that I never studied before. It was fun because nothing was serious in my life after the transformation. It was as if I had taken a permanent vacation from life. When I studied Advaita Vedanta, I could relate with it because it described what was happening to me more than any other tradition could describe. I read Adhi Shankara’s Bhasyas and I came across the following: Even though I didn’t label myself enlightened (I couldn’t label myself anything), the above was the only thing that could explain what was happening during those occasional periods of mental pain. When I went through many scriptures in Vedantic and Buddhist traditions, I could realize one thing: Many things about enlightenment has been generalized for all people based on their observations on a very few human beings.

What if i told you that right now a portion of the population, who are incarnations of extraterestial beings are simultaneously going trough a massive awakening process, and once thats done, they will assist the awakening of the rest of humanity in whats said to be the first, second and third wave of ascension which wll include massive changes in the collective and total transformation of earth. What a bunch of new age BS gosh, who’d believe that. Bunch of nutjobs I gotta tell ya.

Greetings, This is my first post on the forum and I want to make it count. I have been on the spiritual path for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a little kid I felt a calling towards the mystical. But there is something wrong with me… I noticed I was different when my mom signed me up for kindergarten for the first time. As her cab left for work I just couldn’t handle it. Nothing really happened on the outside but on the inside I was falling apart and I wasn’t sure why. I couldn’t speak to anyone at the kindergarten and I just cried myself to sleep every day. This happened every day until eventually my mom realized I wasn’t doing so well there and she removed me from kindergarten... The painful me-story I come from a dysfunctional and a chaotic family – My parents were divorced before I was born. Although I saw some screaming and fighting it definitely was not the worst story out there. I wasn’t abused or anything like that, however I realized that adults didn’t know what they were doing either and this confused me a lot and made me somewhat unstable. I didn’t see my father a lot - just a couple of times and then he died somewhere in Asia from unknown causes. My mother married another guy who was a decent fellow and I was brought up in that family. He died too (in front of me). For a while I became somewhat stable. I didn’t have too much problems in primary school but I reverted to deep depression in late high school again. The kind of depression where you wake up in the morning and just start crying after realizing you are still alive. I started doing drugs. Didn’t have friends so I didn’t have access to popular drugs but I did stuff which an unscrupulous pharmacist was willing to sell me. I was taking recreational drugs by myself in my room. I had my first panic attack during one of my first trips, thought I was dying. I called 911, but when the lady said “Hello” I hanged up. The thought of my mother finding out overwhelmed me. I thought I would take the risk and wait it out instead – if I die then so the fuck what? I didn’t die that day and it actually felt really good to disrespect death – I felt liberated. I felt like a god. I thought I could get away with anything, so I shifted from depressive to manic reckless behavior. Went to the gym, started taking steroids and all kinds of other substances. Quit after a few months since I ruined my digestion with a bizarre diet which my idiot trainer recommended. I did get huge stretch marks from all the water retention though. I went to depressed again and started taking mushrooms from time to time. I had a horrible trip which lead to a brutal panic attack and this time it was so bad that I couldn’t contain my fear and went to the ER. They kept me in the hospital for three days and my mom found out I was doing drugs, steroids and all that. Since that day I have been becoming more and more neurotic. Nowadays I have terrible social skills. I have never had sex. I have never had a real relationship. I am so neurotic that I have turned away girls who themselves offered to date me and who I wanted to date as well. I’ve had many offers from girls but I always turn them down, because deep down I feel that I am not good enough. I feel that because I haven’t had any sexual experience I will disappoint them and I don’t want to experience the shame from this situation. I know that because I have never kissed a girl in my life I don’t know how to kiss so I will disappoint. I feel that I am not ready to be in a relationship. I feel like I’m a product that’s not ready for market. We are talking pathological levels of insecurity here. I am sometimes afraid to say “Hi” to people - when they are about to look at me, I avert my gaze to avoid eye contact. I am so afraid of rejection that I sabotage my whole social life. That’s why I have spent most of my life in my room, in the dark, alone. I talk to myself because I have no one else to talk to. I have wondered whether I am autistic or something like that. I am so neurotic that my brain likes to generate horror thoughts all the time. Sometimes when I walk on the street and see an open hole I instantly imagine how I didn’t notice it and I stepped in and my foot broke in the worst possible way. When someone calls on the phone my initial reaction is to assume that they are about to tell me that someone has gone crazy or has died. I always assume the worst – I am not doing it on purpose it’s just the result of years of pain, suffering, loneliness and negativity. It’s probably programmed in my subconscious. But wait there’s more... At some point the health problems begun. All kinds of weird stuff – allergies, asthma, digestive issues, unexplained bruising and scratches on skin, insomnia, vertigo, headaches, fatigue. I read every wikipedia article about every symptom, I read hundreds of health and diet books, I’ve tried hundreds of supplements, I’ve spent thousands of dollars on blood tests. I am practically an expert on health and nutrition at this point, only I am not, because all of those diets (paleo, gaps, fodmap, autoimmune paleo etc.) and supplements, and gluten/sugar avoidance and all kinds of modifications which seem to solve other people’s health issues and result in success-transformation stories have done nothing or very little for me. I’ve been to so many doctors – some of them have plain stated they have no idea what’s wrong with me. When I had my health meltdown everyone was either telling me that I am fine or that I need psychiatric help (didn’t know that skin bruising or copper deficiency or abnormal TSH levels were treated by psychiatrists) or that there’s something wrong but they are not sure what. I am starting to think that my health problems are caused by something else entirely. Maybe my deep negativity is destroying my body. Maybe there’s bad feng shui in my room. Maybe my sexlessness is ruining my energies. Maybe holding my sperm when I ejaculate is actually harmful (I read that in a Mantak Chia book, but the author later said that this was actually bad advice, I don’t know why I am still doing that). Maybe it’s just fucking karma and I have to accept my nightmare and wait it out... Let me just say that maintaining my sanity is becoming harder every day. I’ve considered suicide many times. I know it would destroy my mother and I just can’t do that to her. Who wants to play “am I tired of this shit”. My spiritual journey My deep suffering forced me to seek relief in spirituality. I have never had a teacher or a guru, but I did found a person on a forum who mentored me for a while and taught me to let go of beliefs and to seek free thinking and authenticity. I also read some Jed McKenna, some Chogyam Trungpa, some Osho, some Sam Harris, some U.G. Krishnamurti (the most depressing shit ever), some Buddha, some Lao Tzu, some Eckhart Tolle. Listened to thousands of hours of video from spiritual masters. I even went to India for a “radical” satsang. Don’t say I am not committed. I am committed AF. After a while this shedding of beliefs started to suffocate me because I realized that everything is a belief and everything can be questioned. I realized that every concept is just someone’s opinion or perception. If you think about it even the notion of truth is questionable. People say that truth is just the way things are, but that’s based on the belief that logic is meaningful. Maybe there is no “the way things are” - it doesn’t make sense, but then it doesn’t have to make sense, just because I want it to make sense. You know I hear all these teachers making big claims such as “consciousness is real and eternal”, “there is no death”, “there is no self”, “there is a self”, “jesus was enlightened”, “buddha was enlightened”, “tao is union of the opposites”, “tao is not the union of opposites” - doesn’t it seem to you that all of this is BS? I mean how do you really confirm that your consciousness is real and eternal? What if all of this is just some simulation and these insights are worthless or even worse - force-fed as a part of an experiment (remember the Matrix)? What if I am just a brain in a vat? What if existence collapses after a second and we get stuck in blackness for eternity? I get it – most or all of these scenarios are just brain generated fiction. The intellect desperately tries to fill the void of uncertainty with some story, but sooner or later I will have to let go of the idea of certainty as well. So what’s left? More beliefs? More neurosis? Is the goal simply to be peaceful regardless of circumstances (Eckhart Tolle)? Sounds good but what if I become a schizophrenic and lose control over my peace too? Start hearing voices that tell me to eat brains? My uncle just became a schizophrenic a few days ago and he’s already tried to commit suicide. I’ve known and loved this person for decades and suddenly he’s all fucked up talking about conspiracies against our family reputation. How do you make sense of this, how do you accept and integrate this? What the fuck is going on? Anyway... Don’t get me wrong. I’ve learned a lot too. I am super stubborn and I tend to play the victim card a bit too often, but I am actually quite open-minded as well. I don’t claim wrong or right, although I prefer ease over dis-ease. I am becoming too lazy to suffer. I am still afraid of losing my mind, but there is some peace in not taking myself too seriously. Definitely not heaven, more like giving up, but still better than crying myself to sleep (insomnia). I want peace. I want clarity. I want effortless existence. I want to live in the mountains and play my dizi flute. That’s pretty much it. Not sure what to do. Nothing at all to hold on to. I would love to hear back from you. Don’t need consolation, need a way out. All of your advice is welcome and appreciated.

@RawJudah I was recently watching a video I rented from the library by Eckhart Tolle where he was talking about his enlightenment experience. I also read in his book "The New Earth, Awakening your True Life Purpose," that he had depression after his first awakening experience for a few years and was on the brink of suicide. This book has really been helping with the awakening process as I'm learning to differentiate between the ego and my true self, awareness. Transcendental Meditation or aka TM mediation says enlightenment is a natural, normal thing. From what I read in Eckhart Tolle's books he was realizing some things logically in his mind about emotions and thoughts as he interacted with people. He was understanding what the ego was and that it wasn't who he really was. Enlightenment isn't one experience and everything is done...it's a process, a transition. And once it is experienced it is hard to go back to everyday life knowing the truth. The book is worth reading and is said to help the transition process. A few weeks ago I had a brush with Consciousness, the infinite, nothingness. It was great. The monkey mind shut off for three hours and was just directly experiencing everything. There was wholeness, completeness, bliss, peace. ... Yet nothing can compare to this experience... No outer experience or life purpose could ever fulfill that need. It's all inner. This awakening experience was random but I've also recently changed my diet, been practicing TM meditation, and have been using reiki and the law of attraction to manifest this transformation faster. @egoeimai

Hey guys. Hope you're all good. After my awakening and permanent self-realization in May, 2017 my spiritual interest died down a lot. My participation on this forum went down, my spiritual practices came to an end and my whole journey imploded. This happened because I found the answers and tranquillity I looked for when I started. The answer that awakening and permanent self-realization gives you is the vanishing of the question you posed in the beginning of your journey. Your whole conceptual world comes to an end (mostly) and you live, think and talk mostly spontaneously and not pre-mediated. That's quite nice. In the beginning of this new phase I had to adjust my entire life to this situation, so I needed quite a bit of time for that. A lot of new experiences and perspectives opened up to me and I took my time to investigate those. Right now it's the end of 2017 and I am still stable in non-dual awareness and mostly not contracted in my body. I also start to deepen my self-realization and push it towards "God Awareness" to go on with my journey. So I figure it's time to let you in on the techniques I researched and developed shortly before I woke up and that helped me to wake up permanently. +++ Enter Azrael's Awakening Anchor #1 | How To Solve Emotional Suffering +++ I'm a big proponent of meditation. It's a great practice and the basis of everything we do. If you cannot sit with yourself and enjoy it, how can you ever understand your self? However, as we meditate and go on with our journey it gets clear that regular meditation is too slow and mild of a practice to give us the transformation that we want. That's why we have to develop accelerators on top of this basis. The process I'll describe in a second is such a accelerator. It was developed by myself in January - February of 2017 and is based on a few other practices I know. It's main purpose is to solve emotional suffering and contraction of energy in your body. One of the big reasons you are not enlightened and always go back to sleep after a temporary awakening is that your body and mind are full of contractions that keep your ego in place. It is the energetic anchor in the nervous system that makes your ego, persona and body feel quite real and connected. It also makes your suffering feel quite real. The method was tested on myself, @Huz and a friend of mine. I used it maybe 5-10 times in a span of 3 weeks to get rid of a lot of emotional suffering and contraction in my body. I did it with @Huz and he did it on himself as well and it died down most of his social anxiety almost instantly. My other friend cured most of his anger and had weeks of temporary awakening experiences after we did the technique once. In my opinion the technique works best when you do it on someone else. The shift that happens seems to be deeper and its good to have someone to lead the process. However, it is possible to do it on yourself and still have a lot of changes happening. I am thinking right now to give away 3 free skype sessions for you guys to do this process - led by me. If you are interested, let me know in the comments. Also, I'm thinking to make a product out of this and help people with this process over a couple of weeks + consultation (also via a series of skype sessions). So if you'd be interested in that, let me know as well. +++ The Technique: An Interview With Your Inner Children +++ The process is rooted in the observation that all of the egoic and unintegrated roles that your ego plays arise from an contraction of your basic emotions fear / sadness anger / rage happiness / inspiration love Every role that you play takes the raw energy of a subset of these emotions, contracts them in your body / mind and lets a thought story arise out of this contraction to express the energy. The problem is that these roles -> thought stories -> contracted emotions -> raw contraction of energy are anchored in your body / mind (aka nervous system) and get triggered all throughout your day. Because you have a lot these contracted roles and one role can trigger another role, you live in the illusion of a conceptual world of suffering. if you were to experience a subset of these 4 basic emotions in their uncontracted normal form, you wouldn't suffer. You would only have an intense, emotional experience. That's why it sometimes feels good to be in anger / rage or to melt in fear / sadness. Although other times, it seems like it destroys you (-> contraction). Based on this conceptualized observation, we need to find a way to unravel these contractions to let them out of your system. One very direct way to do this is to give a subconscious, uncontrolled emotion a conscious voice to express its situation and to understand its position. +++ The Technique's Technicalities +++ The actual technique works in the following way (if you do it on yourself). Sit down comfortably on a chair / cushion. Repeat the following steps for every basic emotion {fear / sadness, anger / rage, happiness / inspiration, love} Close your eyes and visualize a moment in your life in which you experienced the current emotion very strongly. Let your whole body sink into the emotion. Let it arise where it typically arises in your body. Think the thoughts it triggers when it comes up. In other words: Let the damn thing come on. Interview the emotion. That means ask the emotion a question and then answer the question from the standpoint of the emotion. Your questions should aim to "get to know" the emotion, its purpose, goal, its relationships with people, other emotions, yourself and the work that it does for you. Find a way with the current emotion to work better together with it in the future. That means work out a solution so that it can flow freely and you can live with it uncontracted and free. Open your eyes, stretch, think about what the emotion said and how you can live with that and go on with the next one. When you start working with this technique you will have to "play" the emotion's role. That means that you ask a question and you have to answer it from the perspective of the emotion. After doing this for 2-3 minutes, the emotion will come on so strongly that it'll take over and it will feel very real. I had numerous psychedelic-like experiences doing this technique. You might also experience big shifts in consciousness / awareness + a big opening of your body. +++ An Interviewer's Template For Each Emotion +++ To make the process even simpler, I'll share with you a template that I developed over time that works quite well. Use this in this order for every emotion you interview and add follow-up / deepening questions for your own usecase: Question: Who are you? Possible Answer: I am fear. Question: How do you feel? Possible Answer: I feel quite ... Question: Where are you located in my body when you arise? Possible Answer: I typically arise in your ... Question: How and when do you arise? Possible Answer: I come up when ... Question: When was the first time you can remember that you came up? Possible Answer: When you were ... years old, I came up while you were ... Question: What is your job and main goal? Possible Answer: My job is to protect you from ... Question: Do you sometimes work together with other emotions? If yes, with which and how? Possible Answer: Yeah, I sometimes work together with ... Question: Do you have enemies? If so, which ones and why? Possible Answer: Yeah, I hate ... [...] Question: What could we do to live more integrated together in the future? Possible Answer: You'd have to ... I hope you get the idea. Your main goal here is to fully understand and characterize every basic emotion and through that integrate it. It's very important when you do the interview, that you speak as "I the interviewer" and "I the emotion" so that you fully identify with your current position. It'll be strange at first, an then it'll be awesome and deep. Trust me. +++ Further Notes +++ So that's the basic technique. When you do it with someone else over a series of times there are more elements to it. But this is the main bullet that you need to do it with yourself. if you do it formally as I described it, close your eyes throughout the interview of each emotion an then open your eyes at the end of each interview and contemplate what just happened and what to with it. Then get out of your current state (as good as it might feel) and hop on to the next emotion. Explore how they work together, where they come from, how they contract and how they are triggered. Get the most accurate characterisation of each emotion on the intellectual, emotional and energetic level that you can get. Especially the first few times you do it, get deep and take your time. You'll notice a big release of tension in each sitting and after it which will be permanent. When you notice throughout the day that you feel contracted, you can also make a mini-interview and just ask yourself "Fear, are you that? Rage is it you? ..." and ask what is happening and why it is happening. That'll in most cases end your contraction pretty fast and bring you an even deeper understanding of your emotions. -- Try it! Let me know how it works for you and ask any questions that you have. Are you interested in a one-on-one skype session with me leading this? Maybe I'll throw 3 free sessions out there, if you guys are interested and it works for you. Are you interested in me making a product out of this, where we'd have multiple skype sessions with consultations + this technique over a period of time to integrate your emotions completely? Let me know. I will think about that. Anyway, I'm looking forward to make more of these Azrael's Awakening Anchors to share what helped me to wake up. Peace out and be good to yourself. Cheers, Az

@Leo Gura Yea, I thought the same. And it is my impression from his videos that Shunyamurti is also a dedicated reader and has done serious study in this field. Maybe a case of "Don't look for what they say. Look for what they do" I raised the same objection to the transmission of energy thing. I asked if it is not only a temporary glimpse like a psychedelic trip. This is what he answered: "Your speculation is incorrect. Working with a liberated sage is precisely not like taking an entheogen, for many reasons, and can indeed result in permanent liberation. Of course the seeker must be ripe and ready, courageous and determined, truthful and open-hearted. An authentic relationship with the teacher must be formed. It is this that makes the difference. Not only can the guide help you peel away all the ego defenses, while in the ordinary waking state, but the sage can enable you to hold the vibrational frequency of Self realization for long enough to burn away the old tendencies, fantasies, and unconscious ego structures and agencies. The guru can implant within your heart a power that, even if it does not activate immediately, will set subtle processes of transformation in motion. Regarding your assertion that it is difficult to find such a sage, I would reply that when the student is ready, the teacher appears. Also, where there is a will, there is a way. Even if it involves a pilgrimage to another place, if it is a high enough priority, it will happen. Your spiritual destiny is in your own hands. Namaste, Shunyamurti" The devil's advocate would point out that he is saying this so that more people come to his Ashram But I never met a "sage", so I don't know what impact it can have.