LastThursday

Two times spring to mind: I quit my job of seven years, without any sort of plan and lived off my savings. If I were to do it again, then I would definitely have a plan or a purpose for doing it. All I did was burn through my money and in the end I had to go work again! I booked a flight half way round the world to New Zealand, booked a hostel and went. No plan and a small rucksack: one long sleeved shirt, one short sleeved shirt, thin walking trousers you could turn into shorts, thick walking trousers, a pair of boots, a pair of flipflops, some underwear, toiletries. I had a ball, met a ton of people, regained some of my youth back and did some amazing things (bungeeeee). It was exactly what I needed at the time.

I know it's probably a very broad question and maybe the answer is no. But there's this middle ground between pure survival and pure spirituality that isn't discussed much here. It seems like it boils down to two things. There are systems for living: minimalism, twelve rules, religion etc. etc. But there are also ideals: pursuing happiness, caring for the environment, being grateful and so on. But to me these all feel contrived - surely there isn't a one-size-fits-all way to live? What should be the aim for living both as an individual and as a community? Should there be an aim for living or should it just be free and unguided? Is it just a pix and mix of ideas to suit your situation? What do you think?

Thanks all for your great answers and insights - I'll go contemplate (and live life). Kudos to @xxxx for actually looking up info on killer whales, I've learned something new too.

Stop stumbling. Take a step back and ask: what is truth? Surely it's just something which is true? What does that really mean?

There's a deeper point here about re-inventing ourselves in general. It's clearly possible to do it, we naturally change from year to year; but is it desirable? Yes, we could personally manifest new energies, but I would say this could cause problems socially. Like it or not we are type cast by our friends and families and colleagues and to suddenly become "someone else" would be hard to deal with. The flipside is that we can just "inhabit" whichever character is appropriate to our circumstances. I would say this is incredibly powerful if done right. If done wrong this could be interpreted as social manipulation or a form of sociopathy. I think the dangers of this labelling by peers is very real. Be prepared for pushback!

Is this a realisation someone must have or is it a truism? Is it enough to simply live life mindlessly or must you also mindfully develop spiritually in parallel? Is guidance needed in being spiritual or does it come naturally? I believe killer whales play with their kills (seals), and chimpanzees go to war. What makes them different to us? Or is it just sheer scale of numbers that makes us potentially unbalanced? Isn't this just anthropomorphising animals; can we use animals (and trees for that matter) as proxies for how to live life? Should we rid ourselves of "concern"? Or is that just being concerned about concern? i.e. a waste of living?

I can imagine and ask questions, that's my true nature as a human. So I'm asking and imagining. But ultimately how life is/was lived doesn't matter, the Way is the Way? However a human lives her/his life is the way a human should life his/her life?

So living shouldn't concern itself with being problem free - because there will always be problems? Is there room for reducing the number of problems? Should that be an aim for living?

So happiness in all its guises is important for living? If it's all interconnected then we should aim to think and act in a systemic way to ensure happiness and survival, as a minimum baseline?

Again, like @mandyjw's answer, I suppose the meta aim of living is simply to raise your baseline of awareness first? Or should this actually be a continual pursuit, like, where should you stop? I suppose my original intention was thinking of broad strokes rather than nitty gritty. But perhaps it's all personal and nitty gritty anyway?

Two ticks for "Do what you want". Does this way of living require a certain amount of spiritual development? If so should the aim of living initially be to "get spiritually developed"? And then to live life in a kind of clear intelligent improvisation moment to moment?

Ok maybe my wording was weird. I meant question in a rhetorical kind of why. Maybe goal is a better word. You want to reach a goal of "constant experience of consciousness without the ego", but you have already reached that goal. It's like saying: I want to experience a room without a chair, because the chair is ugly and makes me suffer. The room is Truth, but the beauty and ugliness of its furniture is not Truth. You're already standing in the room, but the furniture is distracting you.

It seems to me like you're seeking the answer to a question you already know the answer to. That's just a story of the mind. Why get rid of the ego? Why meditate? What has will and mental health got to do with it? Why the struggle? As you say, with or without ego, with or without meditation, with or without will and mental health, with or without struggle, "There is just consciousness".

Two levels. Two truths. Is the ego state of consciousness any better or worse than any other state of consciousness? Why the frustration if you already know the truth?

My insight is: If you want to create insights on demand, then you have to have good questions. These are interesting or exciting questions you don't already know the answer to. Eventually you will get an answer, which is an insight. The harder the question, the better.

I checked my mail box today only to find a lonesome scrap of paper in the bottom of it. My first thought was, not more junk mail! And then I read what it said: The reverse was blank. My reaction was informative. Had it really been handwritten, just for me? Nope. No writing indentations, it had been printed. So probably everyone in my block received one? Maybe it fell out of a Christmas or birthday card (it was my birthday last week)? But then why not just write it in the card? The paper it was printed on was a little rough and felt cheap. So next I thought, well what a strange thing to post, if indeed it was posted to everybody or even just to me. However, in amongst all this mental machination the real message had got lost. Someone had gone to the trouble of hand delivering an inspirational post from Zig Ziglar, with no other view than to give me inspiration! Or perhaps just to cheer me on. A random act of kindness, a random act of love for a fellow human. For that I'm grateful, whoever you are.

Just thinking out loud: 1. You can't compare two people's level of consciousness. How would you do that without guessing? Is their outward behaviour the same as their level of consciousness? Can a person with a high level of consciousness ever behave like a complete idiot? 2. What on earth is a level of consciousness anyway? Is it just intelligence, empathy, knowledge, learned behaviour, insight, "goodness"? 3. Even if you look at your own consciousness, does it really increase over time? And if you believe it does, aren't you just comparing using your consciousness at that moment in time? Isn't there plenty of room for relativity and self deception here? There are no levels of consciousness, just levels in consciousness. Over and out.

Language is nothing without context. Context can be truth. "Orange" is just sounds or letters, only context makes it either a colour or a fruit. You don't see orange or taste orange with language.

@Someone here what is birth? Contemplate this using direct experience. Birth is in the past. There is no future or yesterday. Every moment is birth and every moment is death, one gives way to the other. And both of those are illusions.

Paradoxical. How often do I get born just once, or over and over? Every time I'm born, do I not die also? What is going on here?

How long do I get to live for? Now doesn't sound like a long time

As @dflores321 says there is only this - the present moment. You can spin your wheels conceptually all day long; but there is still only this. Just accept you don't know and you'll be closer to the truth.

@Hulia that's what really made me laugh. The answer is, is that there a pros and cons to both situations. The deeper answer is that you should be happy with either - where being happy is not dependent on the situation - but that takes a lot of self development and work.

That made me laugh. I thought the opposite.

More beautifulness