Doing spiritual work and engaging in low consciousness activities

[actualizing25]

Hi guys, so basically Im going to start my spiritual journey soon(Kriya Yoga, Meditation, Psychedelics) and I have a question on regards to that. Im still involved in low consciousness activities like entertainment videos, listening to music, instagram, chit-chatting with my family, porn ( however,my diet is pretty good at the moment, sometimes bad food here and there). Can I do my spiritual practices and at the same time engage in those things or will they limit the success of these practices and prevent me from seeing any results? Or maybe I will see some results, but Im not able to get all the benefits and see the full potential of them. Should I try to stop these activities? What do you guys think about that? 

Thanks a lot for your help.

Edited April 12, 2020 by actualizing25

[Nahm]

@actualizing25

Why are you starting your spiritual journey?

And what makes those activities you mentioned “low consciousness”?

What, specifically, are you expecting to come from your practices?

Why do you want to take psychedelics? 

Also, have you found a way to focus on what you don’t want, without bringing more of it into your reality?

[LastThursday]

@actualizing25 it's quite simple really. There's only a limited amount of time to do all the activities you want in life. The more time you spend on developing yourself, the less time you'll spend on porn and instagram.

It's all a matter shifting your focus and attention to upgrading your own operating system. Eventually the old things you used to do will stop being relevant or just appear to be a time draining distraction.

There's no limit to how far you can develop yourself. It's not an all or nothing thing, it's a process or a journey of discovery.

[whatthefucksgoinon]

You already know the answer to your question 

[Javfly33]

Start by doing the practices and then later in the future you´ll worry about if you stop doing some of those low-consciousness activities.

[Eph75]

You could always start paying attention to how these "low consciousness activities" affect you, general mood, motivation, how it activates your self-talk, what that self-talk is telling yourself, what kind of thoughts it gets hung up and so on. Not least, how all of the above affects your ability to focus and how your meditation (assuming that you meditate) is affected.

Then stop for a while and notice what the difference is.

After that you know for sure what the first hand experience of the activities are and what kind of implications they have on your being.

Getting that first hand experience makes it easier to find motivation to change your lifestyle, but still, by no means, is it easy to do so.

My own experience is that what I would call "low consciousness activities" are very toxic, but it's not a black/white, do/don't subject, it's related to amount/time. It's also very interrelated to how your mind is functioning, how you relate to guilt, shame, pressure, emotions and so on, as what you call "low consciousness activities" you've already categorized as "bad" and falling to the temptation of those will trigger such feelings of guilt, shame and so on, and it's not very hard to see how detrimental these feelings are when not understood and handled in a masterful way.

How would, for example, these kind of activities affect you if your relation to them completely changed, e.g. if you managed to redefine them from being "bad" to being "good" or maybe more realistically "neutral".

Is it in the first-order experience of these "low consciousness activities" that the toxicity lies? Or is it in second- or third-order effects there the problem lies? What is the problem, really?

Is it possible that you would remain unaffected if you related to them in a different way? And if so, is it the activities that are "toxic" or is it something in your the way you related that is the "true toxicity"?

Calls for some exploring 

Edited April 13, 2020 by Eph75

[LfcCharlie4]

You’re allowed to have fun, but you may drop some activities naturally if they were coming as an escape from a sense of lack. 
 

However, you could still do some activities like Movies, Music, TV, Video Games etc as a means of expressing and enjoying happiness, fun and love, instead of trying to escape from negative emotions in them and find happiness in them. 
 

Naturally, some things will drop away, so don’t set any rules, start your journey and see what you still feel “pulled” to do, and like others said how it makes you feel.

In my case, I still play Video games at night sometimes with friends as I find it fun and rewarding and it’s good to socialise. I also still enjoy some good TV shows and Movies from time to time as I find these can be amazing stories and can be very entertaining to watch and enjoy, especially on streaming sites without ADs. 

However, I’m cutting out Porn as it in my case just isn’t worth it at all, negatively effects my relationship I feel and has no real positives in my life. I’m also limiting social media to help me focus more on my business and only using it for connecting with people instead of mindless scrolling. 
 

I’d encourage you to see where the motivation for these activities are coming from and then go from there. Everyone is different! 

[The observer]

theres divinity every where. may be focus more on the high vibes ur getting from low consciousness activities. there really isnt low or high consciousness activities. theres just matching or not.

[Aaron p]

Change nothing. Infact, give into your desires more. Let go