Inner Game Vs Outer Game

[kibrekidusan]

I m speaking bluntly and I m tryin not to offend anbody but taking the enlightenment work with out mastering for real life challenges is fucKen pathetic. yes, enlightenment is essential but don't use it as a defense mechanism to prevent yourself from going out there and work. I think one cannot exist with out the other.  Your Self mastery and enlightenment should be tested by your ability to stay in that level of consciousness when you struggle with real life challenges.  

[Anna]

I totally agree with you!

[Guczo]

"In my view, the realistic goal to be attained through spiritual practice is not some permanent
state of enlightenment that admits of no further efforts but a capacity to be free in this moment, in
the midst of whatever is happening. If you can do that, you have already solved most of the
problems you will encounter in life."

Because what could happen to you when you are totally aware in every next single coming moment?

Struggle/challenges are inevitable, but all this experience can't really touch you then.

You don't identify with thoughts or emotions:

You will fail to achieve something you wanted to achieve - so what?

Somebody will tell you something "mean" - so what?

You could stay then cold-blooded in every given situation

The only real danger is then physical body being damaged/sick/injured.

[kibrekidusan]

@Guczo yes, and practically what you are saying is meditation is enough. It is true. To go out there, be icy and achieve your goals meditation helps a lot. But, that way of thinking is using the level of sprituality for achieving goals. but, if you have read 'the power of now' or enlightenment stuff which I mnot that in to, what they teach you is, the ultimate happiness is to get your real self and presence no matter how rather than using it for success.  Practically,  I may doing what you have mentioned. But......it is the idea behind that. What do you think? 

[Guczo]

"Most of us could easily compile a list of goals we want to achieve or personal problems that need to be solved. But what is the real significance of every item on such a list? Everything we want to accomplish—to paint the house, learn a new language, find a better job—is something that promises that, if done, it would allow us to finally relax and enjoy our lives in the present. Generally speaking, this is a false hope. I’m not denying the importance of achieving one’s goals, maintaining one’s health, or keeping one’s children clothed and fed—but most of us spend our time seeking happiness and security without acknowledging the underlying purpose of our search. Each of us is looking for a path back to the present: We are trying to find good enough reasons to be satisfied now."

I can't relate to level of Eckhart Tolle or Ramana Maharshi, because I am "struggling to get enlightened" and they are an example of sudden realization. They wasn't chasing after it at all. They didn't knew about non-duality before their Enlightenment.

I glimpsed that non-dual realization couple times but then again I turned back to being still obviously psychcentric individual.

I still want/need things like desires and goals, but I approach them in [non-dual] more calm and cooler way then in the past. If i would truly destroy psychecentric consciousness I would become something akin to the prototypical Tibetan or Christian monk - a simple, childlike, unegoistic, unemotional being who no more thinks of disturbing objective universe. 

RAMANA (he was 16 years old when it did happened)

"While sitting alone in his uncle’s study, Ramana suddenly became paralyzed by a fear of death. He lay down on the floor, convinced that he would soon die, but rather than remaining terrified, he decided to locate the self that was about to disappear. He focused on the feeling of “I”—a process he later called “self-inquiry”—and found it to be absent from the field of consciousness. Ramana the person didn’t die that day, but he claimed that the feeling of being a separate self never darkened his consciousness again."

ECKHART TOLLE: (he was deeply suffering his first 29 years of life and then it happened suddenly)

"For many years I had been deeply identified with thinking and the painful, heavy emotions that had accumulated inside. My thought activity was mostly negative, and my sense of identity was also mostly negative, although I tried hard to prove to myself and to the world that I was good enough by working very hard academically. But even after I had achieved academic success, I was happy for two weeks or three and then the depression and anxiety came back.

On that night there was a disidentification from this unpleasant dream of thinking and the painful emotions. The nightmare became unbearable and that triggered the separation of consciousness from its identification with form. I woke up and suddenly realized myself as the I Am and that was deeply peaceful."

So you see @kibrekidusan - suffering may be the best teacher on this path. For many of us the only one.

 I was also suffering, more than most people I know that had more normal/stable life circumstances. I had specific, individual health and personal problems that made me emotionally drained and exhausted. I suppose it putted in me concern about enlightenment. After time, I discovered that it is something more powerful that just tool for stress-reduction. Of course true knowledge of self is available for everyone, but I wonder if someone is really bound up with ego and successful in conventional way, than he presumably wouldn't have any concern for even starting his searching. 

 

[Ayla]

2 hours ago, Guczo said:

suffering may be the best teacher on this path. For many of us the only one.

Yes

[Guest]

On 23.2.2016 at 9:14 AM, kibrekidusan said:

I m speaking bluntly and I m tryin not to offend anbody but taking the enlightenment work with out mastering for real life challenges is fucKen pathetic. yes, enlightenment is essential but don't use it as a defense mechanism to prevent yourself from going out there and work. I think one cannot exist with out the other.  Your Self mastery and enlightenment should be tested by your ability to stay in that level of consciousness when you struggle with real life challenges.  

Yeah, it's like the discussion in the other thread. People who are sucker in life find out about enlightenment and there they have the perfect escape and perfect excuse. Suddenly they pursue enlightenment so they don't have to face real life anymore. I know such people. Everything even close related to success or living the good life is suddenly too ego-ridden and bad. The perfect excuse for staying a loser the entire life. The sad thing is that they probably will never get enlightened too and waste their life.

But if they get enlightened the it's ultimately ok I guess...hell it's ok all the time. We must remember not to judge people and not to care about their lives. It's only about our lives. Live and let live. I find it easy to get carried away with judgements like right now about other people, but that's not the way to go. Who cares if they find their excuse in enlightenment so they don't have to go out and get a nice relationship, or moving out from their parents house, or creating a nice business or anything like that and then they won't even ever be enlightened because of their fundamentally fucked-up mentality? 

[FindingPeace]

1 hour ago, The Alchemist said:

People who are sucker in life find out about enlightenment and there they have the perfect escape and perfect excuse. Suddenly they pursue enlightenment so they don't have to face real life anymore.

Interesting comments. 'Escape' and 'excuse'? Not facing real life anymore.

People that get the inner game sorted and perhaps reach enlightenment are exactly those that are facing reality. It's the rest of society that neurotically goes around making 'struggles' and 'challenges' out of things that in reality are no such thing.

Getting your psychology sorted is not an excuse or an escape. It is the exact opposite. It actually frees you from challenges and suffering in life. It frees you from the illusions that cause all of the shit that you feel you suffer from in life.

It takes more work and greater wisdom to see reality for what it is than it does to live within the low-conscious illusions that cause all the struggles that you refer to.

[Guest]

1 minute ago, FindingPeace said:

Interesting comments. 'Escape' and 'excuse'? Not facing real life anymore.

People that get the inner game sorted and perhaps reach enlightenment are exactly those that are facing reality. It's the rest of society that neurotically goes around making 'struggles' and 'challenges' out of things that in reality are no such thing.

Getting your psychology sorted is not an excuse or an escape. It is the exact opposite. It actually frees you from challenges and suffering in life. It frees you from the illusions that cause all of the shit that you feel you suffer from in life.

It takes more work and greater wisdom to see reality for what it is than it does to live within the low-conscious illusions that cause all the struggles that you refer to.

It's the motive and mindset with which people go about this. You make it sound more noble than it actually is for some people, because all they do is looking for an escape instead of facing their challenges in life and stepping up. The problem is that those people never get their psyche sorted because even there they fail and struggle and give up

[FindingPeace]

3 minutes ago, The Alchemist said:

It's the motive and mindset with which people go about this. You make it sound more noble than it actually is for some people, because all they do is looking for an escape instead of facing their challenges in life and stepping up. The problem is that those people never get their psyche sorted because even there they fail and struggle and give up

I think I know what you mean. I agree, there are people who think they are doing useful inner work when atually they are just distracting themselves and creating a belief of development. Which achieves nothing really. That distiction wasn't clear in the original post though.

I'm doing most of my work on the 'inner' side at the moment before working on the outer stuff. It makes sense to me to do it that way around. Reason being that my outlook and perspectives on life have changed whilst my inner game has been changing. However the improvement of the quality of my life has been profound even though my circumstances haven't really changed.

So I advocate the inner-game work even if it is done without much out-game work. As long as there is a greater picture and an overall plan.

[Azrael]

On 23.2.2016 at 9:14 AM, kibrekidusan said:

I m speaking bluntly and I m tryin not to offend anbody but taking the enlightenment work with out mastering for real life challenges is fucKen pathetic.

I kind of agree and disagree with you on this one. I think you are greatly benefited if you start your enlightenment journey after you have managed to get your basic needs in place. Meaning, a job, maybe a girlfriend / wife if you want, a solid self-confidence. All this probably helps to start the journey and not to fall of it (because you have no money anymore to feed yourself or shit like that.)

However, one also has to see that there is no special point to reach in self-actualization. it always goes on and is very depended on your current situation and what pops up in your life and how you (want to) handle it.

You could also start an enlightenment journey if you are a complete loser, dead sick or any situation you can think of. Might be harder though.

I firmly disagree with you about your point that it's pathetic to take enlightenment out of mastering your normal life. Because it's pathetic to take your life serious at all. That's the whole point of enlightenment, to see that. Everything you do in your normal life is a game in which you play a role. You are actually so identified with your roles that you come here and argue for the game because it seems so real to you.

Don't get me wrong on this one, there are games that are not serious but maybe sincere. And because of this I like to "actualize my day to day life" and have fun with this, while being on the journey and while seeing that this is all play (or trying to see that - it's not easy).

So everybody who goes on such a journey and becomes a monk will probably be more right in saying that what I do - having a "normal" life and trying to seek pleasure out of it - is more pathetic than sitting all day long and meditating to get to the same goal. Keep that in mind, and see for which side you really argue here. It's not that easy to see that and somebody who speaks for his self-identification will probably have problems understanding my point. Any ways, thanks for the conversation  

[Guczo]

2 hours ago, Arik said:

I firmly disagree with you about your point that it's pathetic to take enlightenment out of mastering your normal life. Because it's pathetic to take your life serious at all. That's the whole point of enlightenment, to see that. Everything you do in your normal life is a game in which you play a role. You are actually so identified with your roles that you come here and argue for the game because it seems so real to you.

Don't get me wrong on this one, there are games that are not serious but maybe sincere. And because of this I like to "actualize my day to day life" and have fun with this, while being on the journey and while seeing that this is all play (or trying to see that - it's not easy).

Yes, It ain't hard to distinct (conceptually - the trick is of course that it ain't conceptual thing.) that ultimately I wanna get to know myself ( as formless awareness ) but at the same time - why should not I play with forms and enjoy them? 

[Ramu]

On 2/23/2016 at 3:14 AM, kibrekidusan said:

I m speaking bluntly and I m tryin not to offend anbody but taking the enlightenment work with out mastering for real life challenges is fucKen pathetic. yes, enlightenment is essential but don't use it as a defense mechanism to prevent yourself from going out there and work. I think one cannot exist with out the other.  Your Self mastery and enlightenment should be tested by your ability to stay in that level of consciousness when you struggle with real life challenges.  

But no one is saying that real life doesn't go on after enlightenment.  One still has to earn a living and pay bills right?  Enlightenment work is neither a cop out nor a way of becoming a superhero.

Edited February 25, 2016 by Ramu
Grammar

[Azrael]

50 minutes ago, Guczo said:

but at the same time - why should not I play with forms and enjoy them? 

I think there is absolutely no problem to play with any forms that can occur, to take any role that I can think of and play it out or to fulfill any deep desire programmed into myself - when that day comes where I can see that all of this has no value at all and it is at its root just play. In beforehand, I'll always have to be conscious about the fact that I tend to give these games value.

And when I give them value I give birth to the possibility that I feel shitty when I can't have them no more. And that's why the monk listening into the mountains and just sitting is wiser than me - because he is actually able to realize what I just said.