Lifelong pursuit of reality

[stephenkettley]

I feel drawn to never getting married or having children to pursue reality in all the ways I want (tech career, mastering music, building a self-development brand as well as then deeper awakening/spirituality etc.) - does anyone else feel this way?

thinking about it often excites me more than anything. 

[Leo Gura]

Go for it.

You can change your mind later.

[bazera]

@stephenkettley I feel the same way. How old are you?

[stephenkettley]

@bazera I am 28. So I often think about all the crazy depth and creativity and awakening I could pursue over the next 4 decades if I was solo.

[stephenkettley]

@bazera How old are you?

[bazera]

@stephenkettley I'm 30.

I think marriage and children isn't my thing, but relationships in general yes.

You can learn a lot from relationships, and enjoy creating them.

[stephenkettley]

@bazera Agreed, relationships in general are also very powerful for development. I am also quite interested in potentially committing to full semen retention for life to test the potential of transmuting all sexual energy into creativity and development and awakening, but that will require some more contemplation haha.

What are you most interested in pursuing in life buy removing marriage and children?

[bazera]

38 minutes ago, stephenkettley said:

What are you most interested in pursuing in life buy removing marriage and children?

There are lots of things. Hard to list them all. 

Understanding spirituality is one of them.

I don't want to add more survival pressure on me by having a wife and children.

Edited yesterday at 04:37 PM by bazera

[stephenkettley]

@bazera I feel the same way. You said it well.

[QVx]

As someone who has went through the conundrum, and social stigma, of not wanting children or a family at this time of my life (33 years old), the last five years of truth seeking have been monumentally tough but also rewarding in a way nothing else could ever be.

Like Leo said, you can always change your mind later; no regrets.

A word of warning though, you will find it extremely difficult to tolerate a relationship with most people the deeper you go into truth. Depending on how serious you are to know the truth, it will cost you all your dreams and fantasies that you hold.

[Magnanimous]

8 hours ago, QVx said:

A word of warning though, you will find it extremely difficult to tolerate a relationship with most people the deeper you go into truth. Depending on how serious you are to know the truth, it will cost you all your dreams and fantasies that you hold.

@QVx I'm extremely extroverted. I wanna realize the truth (get enlightened, get God-Realized) but I also want a lot from material life, like marriage, kids, successful purpose, etc.

Why does going deeper into truth reduce relationship tolerance? I'm ok with it in the context of my own spouse and children but I'd like to know for the future's sake.

[WonderSeeker]

23 hours ago, stephenkettley said:

I feel drawn to never getting married or having children to pursue reality in all the ways I want (tech career, mastering music, building a self-development brand as well as then deeper awakening/spirituality etc.) - does anyone else feel this way?

thinking about it often excites me more than anything. 

As long as it's authentic to you, nothing anyone says matters.

I used to go back and forth about family, but now I've decided I really do want to have one. For me it's a 10-year plan, when I am about 38 I'll settle somewhere temperate with a lovely female.

Awakening will happen along the way and during this whole process. I don't see awakening or career as needing to be in place of living a well-rounded life. Rather, it drenches family life with so much more meaning and consciousness. Imagine being an awakened parent — I think that's cool as fuck.

Edited 7 hours ago by WonderSeeker

[QVx]

16 hours ago, Magnanimous said:

@QVx I'm extremely extroverted. I wanna realize the truth (get enlightened, get God-Realized) but I also want a lot from material life, like marriage, kids, successful purpose, etc.

Why does going deeper into truth reduce relationship tolerance? I'm ok with it in the context of my own spouse and children but I'd like to know for the future's sake.

@Magnanimous, truth is the antithesis for material life unfortunately. Truth shows you that the beliefs and desires you have for the material things you care about are not real; they were just very elaborate fantasies [dreams]. The material things remain, however your relationship and interest in them fade as you see the stories of your own mind become more transparent. You begin to notice how you are constructing the stories which give the material things the desire which you feel; the beginning of that process is very disorientating  and many people are unable to push through. This is why it is very difficult to move past a certain point of ego development, as it's like crossing a bridge that you can never return from and you are aware of this; this stage is described well under the Ten Ox-Hearding pictures in Zen.

A good practical example to check against for yourself would be things you enjoyed in your teenage years and why you no longer enjoy them; a hobby or friendship you outgrew would be easy to start with. Notice that the hobby and friendship never really changed, the way you related to it in your mind changed.

The best advice I can give you would be to exhaust your material desires; Leo has a video on burning through Karma that is very relevant to this. Once you feel satisfied with your material desires you will naturally orient yourself towards truth seeking; precisely because you will begin to see how they never really made you happy [in an existential way].

You can also watch Leo's video series of Ego Development, there are various models but Leo discusses Susanne Cook-Greuter's thesis in the series. All humans naturally go through each stage of development, and these stages can't be skipped or bypassed, as the mind alway returns to the anchor of what feels most safe. One can only move through the stages through living life, but there is no guarantee that you will move through every stage; remember what I said about crossing the bridge earlier?

Hope that is somewhat helpful.