abrakamowse

I thought the same thing at your age. And I have to say I was sooo wrong. When you are free of desires you will find your true desires. Right now you desire what it was programmed for you by the environment, your parents, friends, etc. When you have no desires a true desire appears and that is your real self. If you think this teaching is very advanced, it's Ok. You will learn it with time, I am sure of that. Who says that? Isn't that another thought? How do "you" create "your" thoughts? Can "you" stop thinking?

Huike, the Second Patriarch, said to Bodhidharma, “My mind is not yet at rest. Master, I implore you, set my mind to rest.” The master replied, “Bring your mind here and I’ll set it to rest for you.” Huike said, “I’ve searched for my mind, but am unable to find it.” “There,” said the master, “I’ve set your mind to rest.”

If you read the 4 agreements and you liked it , maybe you will like the mastery of self: https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Self-Toltec-Personal-Freedom/dp/1938289536/

You feel unfulfilled because there's no "you" to be fulfilled. And you want to maintain a false idea of "me" or something who needs to feel fulfilled. There's no a "self" that needs to feel fulfilled.

I found something interesting too, maybe it can be of help: Eric Fromm regarding human nature: “...we do not have to be satisfied with general and abstract speculations about the inherent goodness versus evilness of man. Depth psychology has offered us ample clinical material and useful hypotheses which can help us to establish the following facts: there is a special type of personality, not rare, yet not the rule, which loves destruction and death. Men who belong to this type find their most intense satisfaction when they can kill or torture; all of their energies are directed to the aim of destruction - although they often do not permit themselves to be aware of the nature of this passion. This "necrophilous," death-loving orientation can be described and understood in its dynamics, its manifestations, and its genesis. Such inquiry leads us to see that destructiveness is neither the nature of man, nor is it contrary to his nature; that it is also not one pole of a Manichaean-Freudian dualism of good and evil. I shall try to show that the pleasure in destruction is a "Secondary potentiality," a perversion which occurs necessarily when the primary, life-favoring potentialities fail to develop. There are those in whom destructiveness has become the dominant passion---they are the true killers; there are the many in whom the passion for destruction remains secondary in strength to the life-furthering tendencies, yet is strong enough to be aroused by the killers under special circumstances. Finally there are those in whom the life-loving tendencies are so strong and dominant that no circumstances will make them join the killers.”

Sorry to interrupt, but the problem here is not that Bundy doesn't have the brain structure to process a feeling. He created that brain structure because he didn't know he is not his thoughts. He was unconscious as most of us, but he didn't even have the awareness to know it. So he continue feeding those thoughts who came to his mind, like it came to all of us, but some don't pay attention to them. The thoughts are feed on attention. And if you don't see that those thoughts are not you, you begin to think "I am this, I am a serial killer" and then you act as a serial killer. Check this video on youtube how the way we think modifies our brain, and not the other way around. It is a process called "brain plasticity" and shows how we "rewire" our brain with our thoughts.

@MalAbout Personality disorder I found that Suzanne Segal had a similar experience that was diagnosed as depersonalization disorder. I think that the girl you've mentioned really had a strong "no self experience", but that doesn't happen because she read something or because someone told her about that. There's thousands of people who watch videos on youtube and nothing happens to them. That's clearly her consciousness getting awakened on her, but if she's not really prepared she can think that shes going crazy, I tell you that because it happened to me too. Now I see clearly what happened, and I know that even at that moment I needed the therapists, they were really confused about what happened... and let me tell you that I am still taking pills and now I feel much better than my own therapist. I know I won't need those pills never anymore, because nothing in my mind is real, nothing in my mind affects me the way it used too. So my mind can go fucking crazy and people will see me outside like a normal person, because I am focused on my "being-ness" I don't pay attention to thoughts when they go crazy, the monkey mind as we call it. Check this link, this is what happened to Suzanne Segal, it's interesting. I don't think Leo has nothing to do with the problems of other persons, he can't create anything or make anyone believe this or that. Same thing about anything said or written on this forums. Everything is what it "is". Nothing wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suzanne_Segal I'll post some fragments here because I think it can cast some light about this: "One day in 1982, while boarding a bus in Paris, the 27-year-old Segal experienced a sudden shift in her consciousness. She described the experience in her book, Collisions With the Infinite: "I lifted my right foot to step up into the bus and collided head-on with an invisible force that entered my awareness like a silently exploding stick of dynamite, blowing the door of my usual consciousness open and off its hinges, splitting me in two. In the gaping space that appeared, what I had previously called 'me' was forcefully pushed out of its usual location inside me into a new location that was approximately a foot behind and to the left of my head. 'I' was now behind my body looking out at the world without using the body's eyes." Segal described this first period of her experience as "witnessing", since she was aware of herself but also critically detached from it. This was tremendously unpleasant for her, full of anxiety and fear: The moment the eyes opened the next morning, the mind exploded in worry. Is this insanity? Psychosis? Schizophrenia? Is this what people call a nervous breakdown? Depression? What happened? And would it ever stop? ...The mind was in agony as it tried valiantly to make sense of something it could never comprehend, and the body responded to the anguish of the mind by locking itself into survival mode, adrenaline pumping, senses fine-tuned, finding and responding to the threat of annihilation in every moment."

Think about it... what Buddhism says that the root of the problem is, the root of the problem is that we see ourselves as separated beings. You "think" you are a separated being so you act in that way. If you are not the others, of course you will doubt if having empathy is the right way to go. Think about all the common things on the different religions or philosophies. All of them talk about "transcending the self". When you transcend the self you will see that you and your neighbor are the same. Do you think you won't have empathy for someone who is also you? When you are doing something "wrong" to other, you do it to yourself. I am not "conscious" or awakened, but I can see a commonality on religious, spiritual stuff and I think it make sense. That's the only way you can "love your neighbor as yourself", otherwise is pretty difficult. We are what we think we are. That's something Buddha said too. And I don't say it like because they are awakened beings we have to follow them blindly, there's something behind that idea of separated self that transcends all and love all without conditions, and that can shine through you too. It was always you but you (and me) let it be obscured by thoughts about being separated selves isolated from the universe and from other human beings. We are all one.

So... we are all enlightened here.

Well, I could finally "see" that there's no one doing anything. But I didn't have a non-duality experience. They say when you see there's no one there doing anything or controlling anything, everything begins to fall by itself. But really, once you know there's no one, anything else matters. You don't search anymore, there's no thirst to read more, you just let things happen. And it's really nice. Some people prefer to call it self-realization. I think that's more appropriate.

I would like to add that this is one of the best articles I've read about enlightenment, thanks for sharing it @Patrick I'll post it again here, everyone should read it. http://www.spiritualteachers.org/norquist_article.htm

That's really good @ashleigh :-)

Yeah, it's just that. It can sound hollow from the ego perspective but once you are on the other side means freedom. Anyway... there's no one to become enlightened so... there's also no one to become depressed or see the experience as hollow.

What is Enlightenment for you?

I wanted to share that @Ayla with you, I found it in a blog. "I’m finding that the more I take in the idea of no-self, the more I’m becoming who I really am."

Thanks Ayla!!! I love you, really. hehehe.... very nice of you sharing that. I had a similar experience but not with suicide, my thoughts almost drove me crazy, so the "I" didn't have a choice.

@cetus56 That's cool!! I didn't know that.

Thanks @Natasha

What's the difference between the ephemeral world and the physical world? Both are the same. An atom is separated and it generates energy, right? Isn't that energy the "energetic" world. I don't see difference, all are the same. You perceive an object as physical, because that's what your senses tell you, but it's not physical. How do you know is physical? We can't see reality, the only thing we have is our experience. The rest of the stuff or ideas are just thoughts, that they are very creative but they don't take us anywhere, because you don't even know if you are the thinker of your thoughts. You are perceiving them, but they are not yours. Or what do you think? (Anyway we don't think, what we think we are is just another thought.)

There was walking yesterday when the bus stopped close to home, but no one was walking. There was just walk. Then blinking happened, and no one blinking, just blinking doing its thing, and it was liberating. Blissful, awesome and at the same time as Shunryu Suzuki says "nothing special". There's nothing special on how nature works, but at the same time is marvelous and mind blowing. Existence can be a nightmare or a beautiful dream. We don't choose it because there's no chooser. How can be "choose" if the "choosing" is done by "thoughts", thoughts that are just that. Thoughts appearing. We can't choose, we only can live, or better said "be lived" by reality. There's no problems there, nothing to be solved, everything is perfect. Even the most outrageous acts are perfect, that's what is needed to expand consciousness, there's nothing we can do. No resistance, just let consciousness do whatever is needed to do. Because if something is done from that place, it will be perfect as everything it is. So we will be doing by no-doing. Everything is under control, so "we" don't need to do nothing from the place of "identity". We have to go to the place of no resistance and acceptance of what is.

Cool! Keep doing it. :-)

Did you buy some?

Just curiosity, you don't feel that everything is one... is that correct? How are you separated from the universe? Not trying to convince you or say you are wrong or anything, just wondering about how you see reality. Thanks in advance.

What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us. - Emerson