What is keeping me from waking up?

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

The intuitive answer would be... nothing. If there was nothing keeping me from being awake, wouldn't I already be awake? Nobody can validate for me whether or not I am awake. I don't know what "awaking" truly means, so maybe that points to me not being awake, but maybe that's just more appearances. I have loose memories of awakenings to which I can compare this present experience, but that's also just appearances. So how do I stop appearing as "not awake", if what I am is that which is appearing to be the dream character asking this question (assuming that I have control over what's appearing, or in other words, Self-control).

Edited June 4, 2023 by DefinitelyNotARobot

[Moksha]

Notice what draws your attention. Is it internal or external?

Awakening requires realizing the reasons for your suffering. Until you see what causes you to suffer, you won't be able to stop identifying with it.

[Javfly33]

You have to PRAY motherfucker

Pray pray pray, Surrender TO YOURSELF.

I'm not kidding. Fall to your knees before meditating and literally humble ask for Love, Light, Awakening, Truth.

You will be surprised what can happen without even taking psychedelics. You imagine all limits and conditions. You can Awake when you want, as profoundly as you can.

God is here and within you. Just completely be humble, surrender, pray to your higher self.

[Hojo]

to find out why you are asleep try to find what put you to sleep

Coming into our identities is a long process of your soul being crushed we dont remeber it

So figure out why you think you arent god and think about it why you thought those things

All these things are beliefs that you pick up are limited beliefs of your character that make you who you are now

life is an actual dream you come into and you keep getting scared and it solidifies you into the dream

 

 

Edited June 4, 2023 by Hojo

[ivankiss]

Most likely, what's stopping you or anyone else is a belief. 

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

21 hours ago, Moksha said:

Notice what draws your attention. Is it internal or external?

It's probably a mix of both. It's dissatisfaction with my material circumstances, but also fear of changing how I relate to these circumstances internally, because I fear loosing myself in the process, which is precisely what must happen since "I" have to "die" in order to create true change.

21 hours ago, Javfly33 said:

You have to PRAY motherfucker

What would that look like?

@Hojo @ivankiss How do I stop manifesting these beliefs?

[Moksha]

13 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

It's probably a mix of both. It's dissatisfaction with my material circumstances, but also fear of changing how I relate to these circumstances internally, because I fear loosing myself in the process, which is precisely what must happen since "I" have to "die" in order to create true change.

It's the fear of losing yourself that keeps you superglued to false reality, however miserable it makes you. What solvent will loosen the fear enough that you are able to begin realizing space from the torture of the conditioned mind?

For me, it was suffering. I finally reached the point where anything was better than continuing the perpetual downward spiral. It took 55 years to finally release the source of my suffering, and realize myself.

Hopefully it happens sooner for you. On the other side, I can tell you the fear is a lie. What you are clinging to so desperately is a shadow, compared to the radiance of the absolute within. Instead of placing conditions on your happiness, surrender to your essence, and be free.

[Breakingthewall]

you have to realize that you are reality, and not realize it for a while with psychedelics, but constantly. It's extremely difficult because reality is set up to make it look like you're an entity facing reality. Nothing you read is going to make you see the truth. it is a process. you have to want to enter in yourself, open yourself to the truth. You will take many small steps, suffering will be your guide. is there suffering? Why? what causes it? enter in you, understand, deconstruct your structures. if you have to do psychedelics a lot, do it. if you have to meditate for hours every day, be alone, whatever, do it. is priority. without awakening there is only suffering, incompleteness, dissatisfaction. Awakening is the relaxation of control, the breaking of the limits.

[WeCome1]

The absence of 5-MeO in your rectum. Sorry, just kidding, but had to be said. Never tried myself.

Strictly speaking, nothing is keeping you from "your true nature" except for a belief in "awakenings". In the sense that the ultimate reality is now and always right here, "before your eyes", and it doesn't get any more ultimate or more real. It just "seems" to be something else, like an optical illusion of perspective in a flat landscape painting.

BUT.

Within this ultimate reality of yours now spins the narrative about your "relative human existence". This narrative is extremely elaborate, intricate, multi-layered and complex. It is interesting, it's designed to be. And it is this interest in the narratives that are spun which maintains the illusion of this ultimate reality being something else. A good analogy, in my opinion, is the "suspension of disbelief" which you are experiencing when watching a movie: the movie is obviously "fake", but, once it hooks you - the longer you look, the more immersed you get. Analyze, how exactly does that happen?

It is normal to be interested. You will be interested, until gradually your interest will one day run its course. And then your mind will cease to maintain the illusion. I think, it was Nisargadatta Maharaj who said something like:

"You cannot escape the illusion - what you can do is stop maintaining it."

But, again, undertaking something like "actively losing interest in these narratives in pursuit of the Truth" is, of course, just becoming interested in this other narrative. And that is also ok. The thing will sort itself out.

Edited June 5, 2023 by WeCome1

[Moksha]

23 minutes ago, WeCome1 said:

But, again, undertaking something like "actively losing interest in these narratives in pursuit of the Truth" is, of course, just becoming interested in this other narrative. 

Weird, it's been a long time since I experienced deja vu and it happened just now.

Anyway, I was going to suggest that rather than moving to another narrative, which is not really awakening but changing sleeping positions, it is possible to remain within the current narrative, but lucidly, from a distance, without losing your awareness in the narrative. The dream continues, but the experience of the dream becomes more free because you no longer place conditions on it, or mistakenly derive meaning from it.

[Hojo]

@DefinitelyNotARobot  think of something you believe in about yourself try to remeber who told you that about you and why you believed it to be true. Then realize its not true at all people just told you what you were and you believed them. Or you made assumptions about what is being said and label yourself as something.

Like Im poor

Why do I think Im poor

Well I grew up in a poor area my house was always trash and I have no money and people made fun of me. We never had food and everyone in the house was always angry about money.

First we can take the word poor away because its a duality automatically destroying itself. Its just a comparison.

Then we can take growing up poor. I didnt grow up poor I grew up in an impoverished environment that couldn't give me all the needs I needed. I was never any of that and was only harmed by my upbringing to put me to sleep.

My house is always trash. That can be easily fixed with the change of a belief. That you keep a clean house

Not only that but you were never poor you always had incredible richness of life and personality and intelligence that were hidden behind all these negative beliefs. Positive beliefs are beliefs but you want them cause they bring you up not down and god is in the highest. But I think you will need to get rid of those to end the dream.

You can take these beleifs to such high levels where you just see everything you do as perfect and you arent anything but perfect whatever things happen to you if you do your best you are feeling like you are floating all day. Then you stop remembering past or projecting onto the future because you are literally doing the most perfect thing.

Best dosent mean to have to like go insane if you are chill your best is your best bro.

These thoughts will always still be there and keep coming but you control them in 1 second when you hear them. These thoughts are coming from the machine of your human mind and you are god and you decide which ones to listen too and which ones to ignore. Which are true and which are false. Dont deny them just say thats not me thats someone else. I might also say dont even affirm the positive thoughts just let them be and enjoy them

 

Edited June 5, 2023 by Hojo

[cetus]

@DefinitelyNotARobot "You" is what is getting in the way of awakening. When was the last time you weren't you?

A complete surrender of self-identification is key.

Here is a mantra to help guide you: God is everything- Everything is God. And each time you repeat it (silently or aloud) surrender a little deeper, and a little deeper, and a little deeper until finally only God remains.

If you can get away from your usual surroundings and out into nature, that really helps too.

[Sincerity]

Fear, repression of feelings, limiting beliefs and mindset, weak focus of attention, not knowing what You want, bad habits, etc...

If You really wanted it tho, You'd overcome everything in the way.

[Yimpa]

On 6/4/2023 at 5:00 PM, Javfly33 said:

You will be surprised what can happen without even taking psychedelics. You imagine all limits and conditions. You can Awake when you want, as profoundly as you can.

Psychedelics are also imagined. Furthermore, you can’t Awaken whenever you want because that would imply that there’s an individual to Awaken. 

Further further more, if you could Awaken whenever you want, that would be a condition that you place upon yourself.

?

[DefinitelyNotARobot]

On 6/5/2023 at 10:49 PM, WeCome1 said:

Within this ultimate reality of yours now spins the narrative about your "relative human existence".

How can I catch this narrative being spun?

On 6/5/2023 at 11:51 PM, cetus said:

When was the last time you weren't you?

I suppose right now, since I am everything, but I am currently also disidentified with "other", so "I" appear to not be "that".

On 6/6/2023 at 0:07 AM, Sincerity said:

If You really wanted it tho, You'd overcome everything in the way.

Isn't the game of overcoming things self-perpetuating, meaning that as long as you look for things to overcome you will always find them and you just go on creating more things to overcome?

On 6/6/2023 at 1:28 AM, Yimpa said:

Further further more, if you could Awaken whenever you want, that would be a condition that you place upon yourself.

Elaborate on that one please.

[Yimpa]

13 minutes ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Elaborate on that one please.

There are an infinite amount of awakenings you can have. As soon as you awaken and claim that to be the final and ultimate realization, you have limited yourself. 

[Breakingthewall]

what prevents you from awakening is fear. all suffering comes from fear. reality is flowing, fear is wanting to stop the flow in order to keep it, to retain it for yourself. this is an aberrational perception, there is no you that can retain the flow, since "you" is the fact of retaining the flow. you must let go, accept the flow. you are the flow,Even if you don't accept it, the flow will continue to flow, only you will suffer. suffering is the illusion of stopping the flow, the separated self and suffering are synonyms

[Sincerity]

13 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

Isn't the game of overcoming things self-perpetuating, meaning that as long as you look for things to overcome you will always find them and you just go on creating more things to overcome?

Idk. I think there are some genuine (self-created) limits on You (fear, beliefs, etc.) which can be transcended, but I guess You could also turn transcension / overcoming into another ego game, yeah. Good point.

[WeCome1]

18 hours ago, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

How can I catch this narrative being spun?

Well, that's the whole bitch of it - you can't. Because "you catching those narratives to prevent them from mesmerizing you" is, of course, just another narrative. If you have an expectation of "Awakening" being an event during which "the real you (or your consciousness)" "awakens" "from illusion" "into reality" (pardon my quote marks) - then I suggest you consider the idea that the REAL "Matrix" is infinitely recursive; and all Neo's "awakenings" are not into "the real world", but into another simulation. Any and all states - even the most extreme, non-dual, infinite and "alien" ones - are, nevertheless, just that - more states of consciousness; and the idea of "awakening" alludes, rather, to "going infinitely meta" on all of them by unraveling the mystery of "the one who (supposedly) awakens". The choice of the word "unraveling" here is very intentional.

Now, with that spiritual bullshit disclaimer out of the way, I do actually have something productive to say on the topic.

To recap. I propose the following model of "Self-Deception":

1) There exists absolute, unlimited, non-dual reality, which is "your" ultimate true nature.

2) This Absolute, due to being unlimited, can be said to "have blissful nature or ananda" - in the sense that it's profoundly, effortlessly and forever OKAY, there is nothing that can "touch" it, not a care in the world; as Morpheus would put it - "IT doesn't even require air to breathe".

3) "Since it has nothing better to do" - or, better yet, "out of its sheer infinite creative overabundance" - this Absolute manifests itself in all sorts of forms; the emphasis being on "manifests ITSELF" - i.e. "takes shape of": think of, maybe, the Absolute Sand manifesting as various sand castles, moving sand sculptures etc. - what I previously called "narratives". But, of course, made not out of sand but of the nameless, formless, magic substance that THIS is; it would be fair to say that "the narratives are made precisely of themselves". This, while impossible to truly understand or visualize, is, nevertheless, an important distinction to make: the Absolute IS those forms - the forms are not something separate from IT, which IT then "perceives". So, when there is a narrative being manifested, say, about "you running from a tiger, scared shitless" - it means that literally everything which is directly present or even indirectly implied in this narrative - is SHAPES of IT: the you, the running, the tiger, the sense of being scared, the transparency of the air, the time this scene is supposedly moving through, the very capacity to make sense of the concepts of "you", "running", "tiger" and "scared" - ALL OF IT. AAAAAAAALLLLLLL OF IT. And the importance of this distinction is that it undermines the false notion of "the Absolute being forced or somehow forcing itself to suffer through this experience of being scared shitless by being exposed to the illusion of being chased by the tiger" (well, that's a lot of "being"...). Absolute doesn't do "suffering", or "perception", or "knowing", or "understanding", or "loving" - but it MANIFESTS as all of those things, to any arbitrary degree of "depth", because unlimitedness. And it does all that, while still remaining totally OKAY. See the difference? @Holykael doesn't, for example. Anyway,

4) The narratives about "you not being awake", and then "you looking for a way to transcend your self-deception"  - are the same "scenes of moving sand sculptures" as everything else. The Absolute (the "real you") never was deluded and isn't now - the concept of "delusion" is a sand castle within a scene.

Here, finally, comes the "practical" part:

5) The mechanism which makes the illusion "feel so real" is the suspension of disbelief, and at its core is selective inattention to detail and willful neglect of inconsistencies. To paraphrase Nisargadatta Maharaj once again: "What you think you are is, in fact, the lack of paying attention". There is another good one from him that goes: "The thing which goes to sleep at night is inattentiveness". So yeah, key number one: paying attention.

6) The fuel which keeps the abovementioned mechanism going is the interest, the fact of being interested in how will this narrative unfold. Scheherazade's tales for 1001 Nights. You want to see what's next; you'll pay attention later... someday... maybe. So, key number two: interest.

So that's the model. And the keys. Now, what can you practically do? Here are some ideas, tried them all, worked to a different degree, but each psyche is different, so no guarantees, you need to experiment.

1) The habit of "waking up" during daily activities and observing what is it that is spinning in your mind right now. You know, those moments when "you were thinking about nothing" or "zoned out" while driving or commuting?.. What you will find is that's where the 95% of "you" is hiding, at the edge of sub-consciousness. Regularity and consistency wins this game; set mnemonic reminders or whatever; cultivate the intention of "waking up frequently". No need to "stay lucid" - just check, regularly, and ever more frequently. This habit constantly disrupts the "tag cloud" that is "your personal self"; one day you will amass enough force of habit and lucidity that the thing will go into subconsciousness and will work automatically, even during sleep. When this happens, you're as good as dead, not long to wait anymore. @Water by the River often recommends the book "Pointing Out the Great Way" by Daniel Brown; I've only just begun reading it, but, from what I gather so far, it seems that those Dzogchen guys took this exact idea and perfected the living Jesus out of it. So, if you're interested...

2) External brain. Some system like GTD which allows you to unload all your new ideas unto a material substrate. But it has to be total: if you use it - use it to capture everything. What this does is lets you see that there aren't really that many thoughts out there - you maybe have a couple of thousands. Once all of them have been captured, you don't have to think them over and over to keep your mind busy - once a thought arises, you register it, you know you've already captured it before and will deal with it later, deliberately, in a time when it's convenient for you. So they gradually stop arising. More space and clarity in the mind. And, most importantly, you are no longer nearly as interested.

3) Meditation practice. Self-explanatory. You need one, doesn't really matter which.

4) Consume media (texts, videos, talks) which undermine your concept of "self", all your positive ideas about who or what you believe you are. This has to be done A LOT. On a commute, in the background while you are cooking or doing chores, before you go to sleep... You have been programming your subconscious mind with a false positive conception of yourself for decades; it will now take years of de-programming. Fortunately, this passive listening works. But actively contemplating and making sure you understand is important as well. Once again: the idea is not to replace your current concept of yourself with some spiritual, vedic, buddhist, advaitan or any other concept - it's to examine all the concepts and see with your own eyes that they have nothing to do with you. Like Daniel Ingram said, "I literally checked under every rock simultaneously and saw in my own direct experience that there is nobody home". If you look for "uncompromising non-duality" on YouTube, you will find guys like Jim Newman, Tony Parsons, Nargis Alegria, Steven Norquist, Richard Sylvester, Clare Cherikoff etc etc... Of the classic non-dualists I, of course, recommend, Nisargadatta Maharaj, as well as Stephen Wolinsky; Padmasambhava and Longchenpa are the best and purest of all, of course - but too archaic for most people. Play "The Stanley Parable" if you haven't. Studying Major Arcana of Tarot and some Kabbalah really helped me back in the day; but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it exactly for deconstructive purposes; but they are the closest you will ever get to "understanding and conceptualizing" the Absolute, that's for certain.

So yeah. That and some psychedelics - and you'll catch those narratives in no time! 

Edited June 8, 2023 by WeCome1

[Javfly33]

On 5/6/2023 at 9:49 PM, DefinitelyNotARobot said:

It's probably a mix of both. It's dissatisfaction with my material circumstances, but also fear of changing how I relate to these circumstances internally, because I fear loosing myself in the process, which is precisely what must happen since "I" have to "die" in order to create true change.

What would that look like?

@Hojo @ivankiss How do I stop manifesting these beliefs?

Simple get on your knees and pray. In the most humble way. Remove the narcissist deluded ego, then God will appear. It was you all the time.

On 6/6/2023 at 1:28 AM, Yimpa said:

Psychedelics are also imagined. Furthermore, you can’t Awaken whenever you want because that would imply that there’s an individual to Awaken. 

Further further more, if you could Awaken whenever you want, that would be a condition that you place upon yourself.

?

You do awaken when *you want ?