Reconciling with "dislike" on the spiritual path

[EternalForest]

I'd like to believe that everything is love, but over time I've found it hard to reconcile with my natural human feelings of dislike. Sadly, I can't love everything and everyone. There are some things I just don't like, and certain experiences that I don't enjoy. Certain foods taste bad to me, certain music just doesn't sound good, certain people I just don't get along with, etc. And although dislike is a natural thing that I don't think I should be afraid of or ashamed of, the act of disliking something seems to be at odds with the goal of believing everything is love, feeling oneness and seeing the beauty in everything.

When I focus on the people, places and things I love, I feel spiritual inside, but when I focus on what I dislike, I feel hollow inside.

Yet I shouldn't feel bad when I dislike something, since there are thousands of things I love, right? Should I try and make myself like everything? I feel like forcing it isn't the answer either. Not sure if I'm overthinking this, but when I dislike something, it bothers me on a spiritual level and I'm looking for any advice/insights on how to reconcile that.

Edited January 22, 2021 by EternalForest

[mandyjw]

No. Sometimes it can be freeing, like when you really want a beach day to remember and you swim in the frigid cold ocean, and it's incredibly cold and uncomfortable but also invigorating and enlivening. But in that case, you just did something that you really wanted to do, and chose to do anyway. There's no reason to make yourself eat food that you hate as some sort of practice, maybe to open your mind to foods you might enjoy but never opened your mind to. If you try to make yourself like someone, that won't work. But you can find something to appreciate or learn from in anyone if you know where and just how to look. 

Abraham Hicks talks about this a lot with her buffet analogy. 

 

Edited January 22, 2021 by mandyjw

[Carl-Richard]

Go into the thing you dislike and see it for what it is. That is love. Bad taste, jarring sounds, confused people, pain in its rawest form: all of it is lovely in its own way. Don't feel bad for having preferences. That is still love.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[EternalForest]

@mandyjw Interesting video, but I don't think I understand how you chose everything that happens to you. Did you choose your parents?

@Carl-Richard If you believe love doesn't exist, is that still love?

Edit: Or rather, if you hate the idea of love, is that still love?

Edited January 27, 2021 by EternalForest

[BipolarGrowth]

Everything is love, but this is only true when you are at the level of consciousness where life is experienced that way. 

[tsuki]

On 22.01.2021 at 11:42 PM, EternalForest said:

I'd like to believe that everything is love

Reality is such. It has been, it will be, and it is love, regardless of whether you believe it, or not believe it. Your belief makes no difference for reality, but it makes one hell of a difference to you, especially because you are trying to orient your life in accordance with it. It does not matter that your belief is  factually correct. Nothing follows from the statement "everything is love". This statement is so underconstrained that anything can be read out of it. It is an expression of experience that is already gone, and trying to make sense out of it when you don't experience the reality of this belief is a dead end.

Now, the truth behind the statement "all is love" can be experienced in various ways, enlightenment, satori, awakening, or whatever, but it is besides the point. It is not your job as a human to become infinite love, by loving everything. Infinite love already is, and "is" precisely because it isn't, it is not-a-thing, it is no-thing, it has no bounds, it is emptiness. It is transcendent of form that exists in it, and it is immanent in its existence. The "you" that you speak of, the one that has likes and dislikes is not supposed to become empty. If you squint hard enough at the core of you, you will see that it is exactly nothing, and yet - it is an unique facet of it. Your job, as an incarnated being is to give expression to this uniqueness, so it is no wonder that you are attracted and repulsed to things.

Within this framework of "unique nothing", spirituality exists as a path of shedding beliefs that cloud your apperception so that your uniqueness shines through your actions without obstruction. "Everything is love" is then experienced as surrender, continuously falling, into unknowing and being held in  the world's embrace, experiencing its mercy. Shedding of beliefs is synonymous to transcending ego, because the "I" that is held as a belief deteriorates into fantasy of being a human, of being a body, of being a female, male, child, father, employee, etc. It is made of rules and regulations that mimic behavior that already happened and worked, but is devoid of presence, of seeing what is appropriate here and now. On the other end, the capital "I", the I that is experienced and not believed in, is awareness itself, is seeing what is here and being guided by what is appropriate. There is no other way to experience this capital "I", than to include what you feel is appropriate for you, personally. This is the paradox of self-realization, to be something and nothing, simultaneously, without contradiction.

[Carl-Richard]

5 hours ago, EternalForest said:

If you believe love doesn't exist, is that still love?

Edit: Or rather, if you hate the idea of love, is that still love?

Ideas about love are illusiory. Reality is love.

[mandyjw]

6 hours ago, EternalForest said:

@mandyjw Interesting video, but I don't think I understand how you chose everything that happens to you. Did you choose your parents?

Sure, why not? Couldn't have picked better ones, would totally do it again. Choice and not-choice is duality, when you tap into what your true desires are and make your choices based on that you actually drop resistance. In the lack of resistance, there is no choice but pure resonance and knowing. Like for example, if I give you the choice between a new iPhone and a broken flip phone, you'd say there's "no choice", right? See how this conflict just beautifully resolves and dissolves when you know what you want? 

[Vibroverse]

We misunderstand what love is. When you experience something you don't want, it also is because of love. Love is not just about people being nice to you and so on, people being terrible to you also is an expression of love. 

[Moksha]

When you look at a human being, do you see the human or do you see the being?

If the former, of course there are humans you will like and dislike, because humans are all different manifestations.

If the latter, there is only love, because beings are all the same Consciousness.

[EternalForest]

@mandyjw I took your suggestion and went outside today with no coat and took a walk in the snow, just to feel the intensity of it. I think it helped me understand what you typed a bit better.

@tsuki Exactly, spiritual statements like that aren't true for me in my direct experience, so it's honestly difficult for me to relate to what you're saying.

[lmfao]

@EternalForest It sounds like you want that/some high state of blissful love of everything? Not saying that that's bad or you shouldn't do that, but is that what it is? 

The way you said "I'd like to believe that everything is love" either sounds like crushed spirits in the aftermath of failure or the expression of a religious person having doubts that their beliefs are true. 

 

All I can say is that for myself I don't aim for love in that way. "I aim for truth and freedom." Whenever I'm healing some neurotic part of me or doing, it feels painful and sucks, it doesn't "feel good". 

 

Your post seems to centre around regret that things don't feel good, and you wish they did. Is that accurate? I say this not to degrade or mock you or that position. But to see if that's what's going on. 

--

I don't know who on earth gave you the idea you shouldn't dislike anything or anyone. Your feelings of hatred may enter repression and build up. 

Maybe reading Radical Honesty by Brad Blanton would do you good. 

Edited January 28, 2021 by lmfao

[Bodhitree]

@EternalForest i would say, focus a little less on your likes and dislikes. You are not the body or the mind, so take a little distance from what tastes good and what doesn’t. Develop a little equanimity, the feeling of being in balance and treating everything similarly. You will find that some things that you used to dislike start tasting ok, like a pleasant change of pace.

[Carl-Richard]

1 minute ago, Bodhitree said:

@EternalForest Develop a little equanimity

No. Develop consciousness.

Edited January 28, 2021 by Carl-Richard

[Barbara]

I believe that the “I” that doesn’t like this or that, is not the same “I” that knows that “everything is love”.

[Bodhitree]

33 minutes ago, Carl-Richard said:

No. Develop consciousness.

You can’t develop consciousness. It is what it is, and can’t be changed. 

[WelcometoReality]

@EternalForest If love is all there is, what if you embrace/love yourself just the way you are with all your likes and dislikes included?

[Someone here]

5 hours ago, Barbara said:

I believe that the “I” that doesn’t like this or that, is not the same “I” that knows that “everything is love”.

Beautiful ?

@EternalForest

You can't love unconditionally and exist as a self. The tax for unconditional love is death. I mean  You must hate  hunger if you wish to continue to survive, no? 

[zeroISinfinity]

Curious will @Nahm disagree but what if survival was never in jepardy?

I have that view. 

Agree or disagree? 

Edited January 28, 2021 by zeroISinfinity

[Nahm]

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

I'd like to believe that everything is love

A belief can believe? That’s hilarious! 

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

but over time I've found it hard to reconcile with my natural human feelings of dislike.

Thought is feeling now?! You kids these days are wild, I can’t even keep up! 

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

Sadly, I can't love everything and everyone.

And a thought can love?! Too much! ? Reality gets crazier by the minute! ?

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

There are some things I just don't like, and certain experiences that I don't enjoy.

Thought can not like thoughts now?! Holy smokes! That’s so radical! What will they think of next! ?

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

Certain foods taste bad to me, certain music just doesn't sound good, certain people I just don't get along with, etc.

Sounds like quite the party man! Have fun! Make sure awareness, me, and I have their masks on ?! 

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

And although dislike is a natural thing that I don't think I should be afraid of or ashamed of, the act of disliking something seems to be at odds with the goal of believing everything is love, feeling oneness and seeing the beauty in everything.

And now a thought can think of a thought?! WOW! Mind. Blown. AMAZING! 

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

When I focus on the people, places and things I love, I feel spiritual inside, but when I focus on what I dislike, I feel hollow inside.

Thought can even focus now?! When did this happen?! Keep me in the loop ‘people’!! ?

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

Yet I shouldn't feel bad when I dislike something, since there are thousands of things I love, right? 

I swear ya miss one episode and thoughts can feel now?! Can someone please clue me in on how that even happened?! 

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

Should I try and make myself like everything?

How’s they get that I separated from everything in the first place?! Chemists? Construction workers? Why isn’t this on the news!!?? That is just insane man! ?

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

I feel like forcing it isn't the answer either.

Wait a minute...are you tellin me thought can not only feel now, but can force ‘it’s’ now??!! WOOOOOOOOWWW! The is exciting news!!!

 

On 1/22/2021 at 5:42 PM, EternalForest said:

Not sure if I'm overthinking this, but when I dislike something, it bothers me on a spiritual level and I'm looking for any advice/insights on how to reconcile that.

No. No way. I’m isn’t this anymore? There’s an I AND a something now? An I AND A THAT??? ? We gots levels of spiritual now??!!  This all happen in my sleep?? What.  The.    Hell.  THIS IS WILD!