Guest EmptyVase

Discovering Awesomeness

186 posts in this topic

Welcome!

In this self-actualization journal, I want to share some of my insights, thoughts and experiences along the journey. It will cover both self-actualization and self-transcendence. Building an awesome life; Discovering the awesomeness of Life. Let's see how things will pan out.

Have fun while reading it! :)

 

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The true essence of non-judgement

The true essence of non-judgement is not because judgement is somehow bad. It is because we don't know anything about "ourselves", "our environment" and "the universe".

Judgement has the tendency of being deeply inaccurate and misleading. If our judgements about ourselves are already deeply false, how can we judge others and the external world? Out of this confusion with judgement, "bad" stuff bubbles up.

But also, one should not forget the relativity of things and have the call to action, when it is needed.

Non-judgement leads to silence. This is where we can "find" truth.

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In order for the body to maintain super high energy throughout the day, the body must be ready to take it. Over exceeding energy can drain the body, so energy should be used in a healthy way, which builds, rather than hurts the body.

Duality: The shiva-shakti way of looking at the world is especially useful here.

If shakti is the present energy which drives now and shiva is the inherent underlying awareness, this basic principle of life can be applied to the creation in front of our eyes. Anything we can feel. The entanglement we find ourselves in. It's life!

How do you translate this into your day to day life?
We could create two main categories:

Shakti:

- The "doer" side of things, the expression of life - everything you do - it touches every aspect of life as we know it
- Infusing things we love to do with shakti gives deep awe for the beauty of life. This is our chance to live a deeply passionate life, full of love
- Proper fitness for your specific body, energy work (obviously also 'leads to shiva'), healthy food, passions, life purpose, socializing, living an amazing life, expressing love to everything through what you do and create


Shiva:

- (I Am) Consciousness, Truth, Love
- Spiritual practice connects us back to shiva, enabling us to create with shakti consciously
- Kriya/Kundalini Yoga, meditations of all kind, healthy sleep, conscious sleep & lucid dreaming, anything which is relaxing, (such as warm showers) helps us to let go more, leaving nothing behind but consciousness

 

Balancing out both of these fundamental aspects of life is crucial for our wellbeing.

Edited by EmptyVase

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In regards to the previous post, it makes a lot of sense to create a life, which enables you to channel the kundalini energy properly.

Creativity is ime one of the most fulfilling ways to do this. Creativity applies to anything in life, both content and structure related (also applies to Isness).

What kind of life do you want to live?

How do you want to put your energy to use?

How do you want it to shape your life?

Edited by EmptyVase

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A powerful question you can ask yourself: If you ruled the world, what would you do with that power?

I find that this is a very eye-opening thing to contemplate. From this question, one could derive potential answers for their unique life purpose.

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Every thought multiplies and manifests.

The Dreamboard serves as a platform for powerful & conscious multiplication. It helps to steer our thoughts in such a way, that it adds to wellbeing.

Edited by EmptyVase

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The more you stimulate, the less you stimulate. Overstimulation numbs the senses.

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The essence of empirical sciences is the same as that of meditation: Observation leads to understanding.

The quality of our understanding is tightly connected to the quality of our observation.

How keenly do we observe?

What is limiting our understanding?

Contemplating these questions deeply will surely make a great scientist/mystic.

Edited by EmptyVase

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Remembering vs. Survival

There's good reason for why we can't remember ourselves on two levels: memories and our true nature.

Remembering memories allows us to feel into them, thus deconstructing them. Our subsconscious becomes vulnerable. The thick walls of survival get broken. Our egos are sensitive and should be approached in a loving and accepting manner.

Remembering our true nature is a whole 'nother deal. Recognizing our true nature is direct death to ego. The degree of death can be partial, so that the ego might still have room to fight back. That's why it is of utter importance to teach ego surrender, love and acceptance. When our egos learn to feel into these aspects, it will stand there with it's arms wide open, to welcome love. Ego can close or open the doors to love. Ego can have a loving relationship with Love, "even" if it means death. In a sense, death is the biggest ego-booster, because ego gets all the pleasure it ever wanted.

Edited by EmptyVase

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The effortless nature of existence

See how this moment flows effortlessly? We don't have to do anything to exist. It just is. The moment just flows and flows, without any effort. 

What helps me to connect to the Now is to just realize, that reality just flows all "by itself". No one has to do anything in order for a reality to exist. It just is. Existence is. Isness is natural. Beingness is natural. And all of these words are prior to anything. Prior to effort. Prior to anyone questioning. 

So with meditation, in a sense, there is no effort involved - meditation just is.

The mystery of free will comes to mind, while writing about this. Again, this moment is just flowing and flowing all by itself. So who then, is to decide, to move this body? The body is part of the moment and the moment exists without anyone doing anything.

So when I decide to move my hand, what is prior to this decision? Who or what makes the decision, to decide to move the hand? And what is prior to that decision? With these questions, there is a conceptual, relative I, that tries to understand. Relative understanding is secondary, as it is also part of this moment.

Most probably, one should not try to understand these abstract concepts through words, as words only point back to themselves and add further concepts on top, into infinity. "Feeling into all this" has a very different characteristic though. Feeling is prior. Feeling is. And feeling also reveals the impermanent nature of what we conceive of as ourselves. 

Very strange loopy.

@Nahm you're invited to this inquiry :)

 

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Complexity vs. Simplicity

Complexity is based on simplicity. Anything which seems complex, can be broken down to simpler parts. Still too complex? Break it down once more, make it simpler and try to understand the simpler parts. Still too complex? Break the subparts down again and try to understand them. Do this until you understand it. A common denominator will be found at some point, which will be your starting point to move up again. Now you can take a look at how the "simpler parts" entangle and interrelate with the "more complex parts". Slowly but surely, you move up the "scale of complexity". New patterns become apparent; deeper and/or broader understanding arises. Now you see that what at first seemed complex,  actually consists of many many very tiny, simple subparts.

This way of moving up and down meta-levels helps a big deal, when we seek to understand.

The mindfuck comes, when you realize, that there ain't a thing which is more complex or more simple than the other. Everything interrelates infinitely with itself and there is no "absolute simple level". Neither is there an "absolute complex level".

You can always scale up or down into infinity. Infinitely more simple or infinitely more complex.

Infinitely nothing or infinitely everything. Is there a difference? No one knows. It is.

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Arriving at Life

Lately, there's been this sense of having "arrived at life". It's the realization, that everything is precisely this moment and nothing can "complete the moment" other than the moment itself. The moment itself is whole in itself.

It's so funny. I had this idea to "arrive at 100%" in order to be successful in self actualization or even spirituality. The idea of 100% was to finish every important/fundamental task and "staying" at these 100%. For example, if there's some paper work which has to be done, it ought to be done right now, in order to "be at 100%". Or keeping all the dishes clean, to have "100% of the dishes cleaned". Of course this idea can be practical and useful to get things done, but it was also pretty much bullshit. "100%" is a concept and a goal or an idea, which cannot be reached. At least not, if you think, that 100% isn't already the case. 100% is already the case. It's only the thinking about the 100%, which make it look like it is incomplete.

It was precisely this sense of incompleteness which I tried to fill through external means.

Looking at this in another way, I tried to "finish" something, which is unfinishable. It's a realization of the newness, which occurs in any given moment, which is now. Nothing is "old", everything is "new, fresh, now". There's nothing outside of it. The idea of "100%" tried to fight against this "now-dynamic" of reality. This fight eats up enormous amounts of capacities. The "fight" will never finish.

It's the surrendering to the unfinishable, and the realization, that the now is whole and complete in itself, which really makes you arrive at "100%". But of course, the idea of 100% and the actuality of it, are two very distinct "ways of living". Then again, when "living in actuality", the idea of 100% and the acuality of it, are one and the same. In that sense, they're not really seperate or distinct. Skating on thin ice here.

Counterintuitively, by giving up the idea of 100%, I was able to get more things done in a lesser amount of time. And I am also more connected to the task at hand, in other words, to the present moment - now. Even though I did not have major spiritual breakthroughs (by far not), did not actualize my life-purpose to the fullest extent (by far not), this realization, the arrival at life makes me feel complete - even though the content of this life is "incomplete".

It isn't incomplete. It is complete and it always was. This sense of completeness gives more energy and feels very liberating. The chains of conceptual living slowly but surely loose their grip. It is the witnessing of life, flourishing.

Edited by EmptyVase

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Mistaking Awareness; Identifying as Awareness

I don't know what Awareness is. All along the spiritual path I've been told to stay as the witness. This helped me a lot - I had a lot of insights about various things, was able to chill during psychedelic trips, and became more conscious and observing overall.

When I first learned about not identifying as ego, it made a lot of sense to me, to identify as Awareness instead, as that is, supposedly, what we truly are.

What I did not realize though, was the fact, that identifying as Awareness still is identification. Letting go of this idea seems reasonable.

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Joy of Excellence

Doing any activity with the aim of doing it as excellent as possible is highly rewarding in and of itself.

It gives a certain sense of proudness and fulfillment, regardless of the outcome. The cherry on top is, when the result actually rocks.

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"Love gives you freedom to be yourself."

- Osho

Edited by EmptyVase

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Since over a year, there's this sensation of a light somewhere on my forehead or between my eyebrows.

When we normally close our eyes, it's never just pitch black. There are always some light sensations. For example if we look at the sun and then close our eyes, these vague colours get brightened up.

When I first noticed that light, it was dim and only very vaguely perceivable. I thought it was just one of these vague colours we normally see. After a year or so, I recognized that dim white light as something distinct from the other light sensations. It's always the same "dot". And always equally dim/vague. It's always there with me.

But since a few months, the dot gets brighter and smaller. It's never static, it moves around and appears/disappears in short intervals. Everytime I try to focus on it, it disappears. So using that as an object of meditation doesn't work for me, as that white dot seems to appear whenever it wants.

The appearances get more frequent. For example, almost everytime I close my eyes in the shower, it's there. The piling up of appearances of the light draws my attention to it. It makes me curious.

From what I've learned, this could be Ajna. But I don't really know what to make of it. I've read a lot of times that you can make use of the light, if you know how to correctly interact with it. The only thing I can do is actually nothing, as it basically appears whenever it wants. Effortful attention can't really "catch" that light. I'm best served by just getting into shambhavi mudra, putting my attention between my eyebrows and feeling that area.

Since I've read it an a kriya yoga book, I also let the third eye 'guide' me. It was a wordless guidance. In practice, that guidance was simply 'my best guess'. But the light was and could never be used as a direct object of meditation. Oh shit, now that I write this, I have an insight.

Maybe my object of medtiation is precisely me letting go of objects of meditation. Because only then, the light can 'do it's thing'.

What do I make of this? My best guess would be just going with it and not overanalyzing it. That's the guidance I receive.

But I'm always open for new perspectives. Even more so, I always seek new perspectives. Any suggestions @Nahm ?

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26 minutes ago, EmptyVase said:

Since over a year, there's this sensation of a light somewhere on my forehead or between my eyebrows.

When we normally close our eyes, it's never just pitch black. There are always some light sensations. For example if we look at the sun and then close our eyes, these vague colours get brightened up.

When I first noticed that light, it was dim and only very vaguely perceivable. I thought it was just one of these vague colours we normally see. After a year or so, I recognized that dim white light as something distinct from the other light sensations. It's always the same "dot". And always equally dim/vague. It's always there with me.

But since a few months, the dot gets brighter and smaller. It's never static, it moves around and appears/disappears in short intervals. Everytime I try to focus on it, it disappears. So using that as an object of meditation doesn't work for me, as that white dot seems to appear whenever it wants.

The appearances get more frequent. For example, almost everytime I close my eyes in the shower, it's there. The piling up of appearances of the light draws my attention to it. It makes me curious.

From what I've learned, this could be Ajna. But I don't really know what to make of it. I've read a lot of times that you can make use of the light, if you know how to correctly interact with it. The only thing I can do is actually nothing, as it basically appears whenever it wants. Effortful attention can't really "catch" that light. I'm best served by just getting into shambhavi mudra, putting my attention between my eyebrows and feeling that area.

Since I've read it an a kriya yoga book, I also let the third eye 'guide' me. It was a wordless guidance. In practice, that guidance was simply 'my best guess'. But the light was and could never be used as a direct object of meditation. Oh shit, now that I write this, I have an insight.

Maybe my object of medtiation is precisely me letting go of objects of meditation. Because only then, the light can 'do it's thing'.

What do I make of this? My best guess would be just going with it and not overanalyzing it. That's the guidance I receive.

But I'm always open for new perspectives. Even more so, I always seek new perspectives. Any suggestions @Nahm ?

You’re dialed in just fine already in abiding in & listening to intuition. :) All I’d add is I agree with the perspective of letting go of an object of meditation. In ‘reaching the light’, that will no longer do. I’d double, triple, quadruple letting go, ‘zooming out’. Let go internally, muscularly, so profoundly deep, that it is discovered there is a body within the body. Then let go way deeper to let that body go. Eventually there will be no body, only the illumination. 

For ‘zooming in’, concentration, there is always the honing exercise of concentration meditation, which has instant ‘effects’, and effects which effortlessly apply to all other facets of living. 


MEDITATIONS TOOLS  ActualityOfBeing.com  GUIDANCE SESSIONS

NONDUALITY LOA  My Youtube Channel  THE TRUE NATURE

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@Nahm Sweet!! Thank you very much for the advice and wisdom. :x

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