Most of society is geared towards making you asleep

[Someone here]

Imo spiritual life is very very difficult in this era we witness.  Almost Everything in modern society is geared towards making you distracted..tickled by temptations from all kinds .. like junk food which ruins your physical and mental health ..social media..video games ..Pornhub..sports ...movie industry..music industry..entertainment as a whole In all its forms ..etc 

You see ? How can you meditate or be detached and mature person when you are being titillated by all that ? You can't even find a quiet place to shut down your mind or to contemplate...Needless to say if you think about existential questions you are considered weird and cringe-worthy by your "bros".

If you read any spiritual tradition..you will find that founders  have awakened when they abandoned society and isolated themselves.  Take Buddha..he left a luxurious life of being a Prince and went to the woods meditating until he either  wakes up or dies there .

Take Muhammad..he awakend in his 40s after he became fed up with his society's worship of idols . He used to meditate alone in a cave before he awakened one night .

Same with Jesus..Sadhguru..Ramana Maharshi etc. 

If you want to seriously awaken..and answer existential questions..you must spend some time alone away from the noisy toxic society . There is no other way around it .

[Someone here]

 And also one of the signs of awakening is You feel alone.. It's isolating to have your whole life flipped upside down by realizing you are god or the only conscious being in existence..especially if the other people in your life aren't quite on the same wave.

[Someone here]

@Squeekytoy no I don't think so . People back in the days (talking about thousands years ago ) had it a lot easier to awaken . The Internet and technology and techno era have reduced down the probability to awaken dramatically. 

Every fucking kid nowadays is playing video games and scrolling through his IPhone and ruining his attention span.  How could he do thousands of hours of meditation and contemplating which is only the threshold to woke territory? 

[Leo Gura]

It's geared towards survival.

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

It's geared towards survival.

Yes of course.  And survival is a dirty business. It conflicts with awakening..right Leo? 

Because awakening strips you of your identity.. your belief.. your attachments..  your desires .your past and your future.etc.

Everything you believed to be true about yourself is dismantled in a nanosecond.

That's why people need psychedelics to awaken today  . But ancient gurus have awoken sober because  old society was a lot less distracting. 

[Leo Gura]

1 minute ago, Someone here said:

old society was a lot less distracting. 

That's an interesting question.

If survival is the chief distraction, survival used to be much harder. So was it more distracting back then or more distracting today?

[Someone here]

3 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

That's an interesting question.

If survival is the chief distraction, survival used to be much harder. So was it more distracting back then or more distracting today?

I don't think it's that black or white..there are challenges that existed thousands of years ago which do not  exist today .and vice versa.

So  for example back then it's normal the person won't be able to function in life..job..family like earlier. But today you can be woke and make business and income out of it like Eckhart Tolle..sadhguru ....and you 

[Past-Philosopher-562]

 

it's essential to consider the double nature of distraction across time. Individuals who reflect on the past may perceive less distraction, but even then, the pursuit of awakening was constrained, often limited to those who recognized that societal norms, framed as social survival or success , also constituted a form of distraction. This is exemplified by the historical practice of seeking solitude in caves for contemplation.

Now , people grapple with myriad distractions, particularly in the digital age. However, many are unaware that these technological distractions represent just one layer of the complex tapestry. The desire for immunity from distraction, often driven by the quest for survival and success, paradoxically becomes another form of distraction in itself because you want to survive and succeed but that also is a distraction .

@Leo Gura I would say , it is more distracting then because survival and succeeding was so difficult that people may not have gotten the memo that it also can be a form of distraction .

[Yousif]

1 hour ago, Someone here said:

Yes of course.  And survival is a dirty business. It conflicts with awakening..right Leo? 

Because awakening strips you of your identity.. your belief.. your attachments..  your desires .your past and your future.etc.

Everything you believed to be true about yourself is dismantled in a nanosecond.

That's why people need psychedelics to awaken today  . But ancient gurus have awoken sober because  old society was a lot less distracting. 

Paradoxically the smoother my survival and my personal life is going the more I am able to awaken deeper and broader in my personal experience, because awakening isn’t just about awakening to the godhead, you can also have political,social, technological, even medical awakenings into the nature of disease and medicine. 

the awakenings into why disease exists and how it exists was beyond unbelievable and amazing.

 

as soon as my survival was hurt when I lost my job, my whole thinking went down into where the money is gonna come from next and nothing else. 
 

Which validates @Leo Gura’s pov when he said to take care of your survival first before you dive into deeper states of consciousness. 
 

in my experience it’s absolutely necessary that all of your human needs are taking care of and in sync/rhythm to the point of it not feeling like you’re doing it but it’s doing you, only then will you be able to enter these high states of consciousness naturally, again in my experience.

 

 

[Holymoly]

3 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's an interesting question.

If survival is the chief distraction, survival used to be much harder. So was it more distracting back then or more distracting today?

The distinction between survival and so called higher pursuits falls away. Things like hunting and fishing today are seen as recreational activities but back then they were survival. We also lived in love supporting environments through tribe so these basic things like survival were actually expressions of love. If you study aboriginal Australians they had such a deep understanding of ecology and nature and the mind it’s crazy and they actually serpent the majority of their time creating art 

[Ishanga]

@Someone here 

I would agree with that our society the way it is set up, its a big distraction, everything is there to distract someone from see Reality the way it is, its not a very empowering society and culture, and this is happening world wide, the American culture is global now...

I think ppl back in the old days had less distractions, when Sadhguru goes into a small village he doesn't have to talk much, they know who he is, so they are much more sensitive to things, and they say ppl in these situations are happier than we are here with all this tech and access to stuff. Its not about Survival today, its about Experience Gathering, going from one experience to another and another, looking to fill in the void felt within, which doesn't end up well for most, they go thru their whole lives doing this then get old and wonder what it was all about and get depressed...

Spritual teachings should start young, it could help with all of this and solve most all of our problems we have today!

[Meliodas]

5 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

That's an interesting question.

If survival is the chief distraction, survival used to be much harder. So was it more distracting back then or more distracting today?

maybe this is not a question of survival being the chief distraction . I think people who are attracted to this stuff already have a certain predisposition and sense that tells them the limitation of what they are currently doing. Hence , they pursue higher things. 

Also , I don't think it's a matter of distraction. you can invent distractions in any era , previous or new ones , although the new ones are a lot more efficient . People who want to run away , run away, regardless of the era. People who want to figure it out , figure it out , regardless of the ERA.

and also survival is still the chief distraction , we just changed the identity which is trying to survive . At least that's what I think

[nistake]

Well, that's true on one hand, but on the other hand, these distractions that you mentioned are pretty easy to ignore. Things like entertainment, junk food, social media, etc. I mean, no one's forcing you to use these platforms to distract yourself.

Are they enticing you to distract yourself? Sure. That's why you need some mindfulness and self-discipline skills. If you need a place to sit silently, make dedicated blocks of time  in your apartment (like a meditation habit), or go to your local library, hell, even sit on a bench in a park.

[LfcCharlie4]

Maybe when you realize every single second in 'duality' is your best chance to awaken, you'll stop separating reality from itself and chasing your own tail 

when you realize all is the absolute, you'll stop trying to escape this

The divine comedy 

But, I do agree with @Ishanga that formal spiritual education would help 

However, don't forget that you have a life to live, and after awakening you're still a human who wants to enjoy life. Easy to get lost in spiritual mental masturbation for decades. 

Honestly, if you look at most seekers they are often more unhappy than the average person because they've lost their zest for life. Sad to see

[BlueOak]

Here is a repeat pattern for you.

A gathering of people on stone steps down to a small pit with a stone alter, a man in a headdress is chanting, and singing, there is fire around him and he makes the fire appear on the alter.

Sitting in a dark arena with flashing lights, and music, in a crowd, while at the center someone unveils holographic red flame at an IT convention.

Do you see it's a pattern, and it's not changed all that much?

The only thing is at the end of this, you say okay I want to be infinity again, an end of the individual pattern(s) you observe/experience, or not. Sure there are a lot of steps to get to that realisation, but I guarantee you if you want to stick around for another bunch of lifetimes nobody and nothing is going to be able to stop it.

So you've got the choice right now. Do you want to keep learning all the patterns as they come one by one, or instead start embodying them all at once? (Or some combination of that in different densities or levels of stillness)
 

Edited January 23 by BlueOak

[The Lucid Dreamer]

On 1/20/2024 at 7:15 AM, Someone here said:

 

If you want to seriously awaken..and answer existential questions..you must spend some time alone away from the noisy toxic society . There is no other way around it .

Very good post.  This is why I am working my ass off right now to save up for an off grid tiny house. This will get my yearly expenses down to a minuscule amount so that I can work much less and eventually be able to focus the majority of my time on awakening.  

[LfcCharlie4]

Has nobody here seen the 10th Ox Herding picture lol? 

It involves LIVING LIFE 

 

[Someone here]

@LfcCharlie4 "life" at the highest level of consciousness is mere illusion like a mirage or a dream . I know you are a practical person and this sounds to you like spirtual bypassing or drug-induced delusions or parroting of Leo etc.. but what I'm telling you is the truth .

To live life fully you should not go after money and success and sex etc ...that's all a spec of dust compared to experiencing God. 

Happiness is god alone.  Life is god alone .nothing means anything without God.  There is nothing beyond God or before God.  If you didn't reach God yet ...then you are not alive ..and if you did..you are living forever. 

 

[Scholar]

11 minutes ago, Someone here said:

@LfcCharlie4 "life" at the highest level of consciousness is mere illusion like a mirage or a dream . I know you are a practical person and this sounds to you like spirtual bypassing or drug-induced delusions or parroting of Leo etc.. but what I'm telling you is the truth .

To live life fully you should not go after money and success and sex etc ...that's all a spec of dust compared to experiencing God. 

Happiness is god alone.  Life is god alone .nothing means anything without God.  There is nothing beyond God or before God.  If you didn't reach God yet ...then you are not alive ..and if you did..you are living forever. 

 

That's bs, everything always is God. Experiencing the inevitable, is a choice you can make, not a biggie.

[Someone here]

2 minutes ago, Scholar said:

everything always is God

No .

There is a distinction between awakening and delusion . Egoic consciousness is being a devil ..being disconnected from god. When you are selfish and evil and you harm others or yourself that's delusion and you will never ever find God or true satisfaction as long as you are settling for anything less than infinite goodness which is what God is . This statement of yours is the reason you are not conscious of God.