krazzer

@ajasatya I have had these desires come up, but awareness already cleaned them up My ego is like a little squeaking mouse in a corner.

@Joseph Maynor It happened to Vegeta in Dragonball Z:

@Moreira Even if you become enlightened, doesn't mean all your problems will be solved, there can still be stuff to be worked through after enlightenment. Here's a good video about that subject: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptkH0uK1uXM I always was a social phobic too. Watching this video multiple times and doing the exercises helped me tremendously:

@2000 How do you feel the day after an intense body workout? Hurting all over te place. Consciousness work is no different.

I find vegan people to be very dogmatic. Certainly not all of them but many of them I know are very preaching to others and on a crusade to turn everyone to their own point of view. Here's a bold statement: Killing animals for food isn't good or bad in and of itself. It's always an opinion. I myself try too eat as little beef and pork as possible. I eat meat every other day and mostly chicken. Chicken because it has the least impact on the environment and I want to raise my own chickens for meat in the future. Chicken is also the best meat for your health and it makes it easy for me to get enough protein and vitamin-b. I also eat fish for the health benefits. Mostly sardines and herring (much of it here in the Netherlands) for environmental reasons. And for egotistical reasons: I can stand the thought of killing a fish or a chicken way better than a cow or a horse! But I don't like the guilt that the crusaders try to put on others (which will make the meat-lovers more resistant anyway)

I was lucky to have only have a one month leave notice. 3 months is indeed a long time. I do webdevelopment, and I was working for the largest tech site of my country (so lots of ego there). The guy who started the company back in 1998 was very passionate about what he did but he sold the company a few years ago and now works there as a designer. All the passion from the company is lost and the people running the company now only care about the money. This has all happened before I got to work there but that's my perception of it. Being into personal development a long time needless to say I hated it there. I've grown my programming skills there so that's a good thing but after that it was just a grind. I wanted to get back at what I did before. Building websites and web applications for small to middle sized companies, using the latest technologies available and keep improving myself. I already had some clients so I had something to build upon. Just like you I was working towards financial freedom. 3 more years and I would have gotten it. But hell I didn't want to wait 3 more years! So I quit my job last december. Officially being self employed since the start of this year. I'm having a really though time finding new clients, but so far I earn enough to be able to pay the bills. I earned twice as much at my job but life ain't about money it's about fulfillment. I keep remembering this to myself because society screams otherwise at me.

@nexusoflife Everyone becoming enlightened. That would solve all problems we have now naturally. And i'm very optimistic and I believe we are slowly but surely growing towards that.

@barry Being a very structured person, I have installed a fixed time when to cheat. Wednesday evening I can have a snack (anything like chips, candy, chocolate, cookies, etc). Friday at dinner time I can eat whatever I want (fries, pizza, hamburger, whatever). All other days I eat healthy and I don't eat anything past 19:00. This way I can easily control my urges because whenever a thought arises to eat something after 19:00, another thought kills it saying: "Nope! you'll have to wait until wednesday, then you can have whatever you want!". Whenever the thought arises to eat bad dinner, another thought arises: "Nope! you'll have to wait until friday, then you can eat whatever you want!" This has massively changed my eating habits. My old method was: "I will only eat healthy from now on!" well that didn't work very well I can tell. This method works very well for me, but for my wife (who has more serious eating problems) i'm not really sure.

@PretentiousHuman Have you heard of Wim Hof the Iceman? In the Netherlands where he lives I know of a man who cured his own crohn's disease by applying the Wim Hof method. He wasn't able te work before, now he is. I've seen a video of it some time ago. Couldn't find it now, but if you want I could search a little more see if I can find it again (it's in dutch however). Anyway, this might help too:

Thanks for sharing, I really like the actor/character metaphor!

@Joseph Maynor Yeah I have the same perception, a few weeks ago I believed enlightenment was extremely rare. Now they seem to be all over the place.

@Scarwolf I have played video games since I was a little kid. I would say that video games aren't in and of itself good or bad. When you're young you learn by playing. You can actually grow yourself mentally by playing games. I remember playing the original Diablo back in 1996 being scared to death in the later levels where you walk around in hell. When I got older I would only play games for fun. Sometimes I re-play old games trying to get that feeling back I had when playing them for the first time. Or I would play games with a big ego component like competition or RPG's where you can max-out your character infinitely, where the developers keep adding content once in a while. That's were it got self-destructive. Over the last 3 years i've gradually stopped playing video games. I would suggest to you to try to ingrain positive habits like exercise, meditation, reading, journalling, etc. And the urge to play video games will naturally fade. And good for you finding this out at your age, I was 25 when I realized playing video games (and watching too much porn) was very destructive to me.

@Jonson It sounds like you are very attached to your own life. And you life very much in the past. If you could let that go I believe a huge burden would fall off your shoulders. I would suggest reading the the power of now if you haven't already: https://www.amazon.com/Power-Now-Guide-Spiritual-Enlightenment/dp/1577314808

https://www.amazon.com/Youre-Smart-Why-Arent-Happy/dp/1101980737 Has theory but is very practical. The book refers also to it's website for practical exercises: http://happysmarts.com

@The White Belt Do you have a daily exercise routine? You might need to ground yourself some more.

@The White Belt Great job on sticking to your meditation habit for so long! Have you watched this video? It explains how meditation has it's up and down effects you need to work though. It gave me amazing insight.

@The White Belt Why can't you split your focus? Why not simply meditate 30 minutes a day (or whatever suits you right now) to advance yourself to enlightenment? The meditation will also help you focus working on your LP and help you deal better with those intrusive thoughts. Seems like a win-win-win to me.

@Jordan wang In my opinion professional sports is useless. There's a lot of ego involved, and you inherently have to compare yourself to others. It doesn't do the world any good. Much energy is invested that could also be invested in helping others. High level sports are proven to shorten life, and causes lots of injury. Sports done recreational or to keep your body and mind healthy on the other hand I would consider good.

@Lauritz my situation was quite similar, and I took the jump. This was 7 months ago and everything worked out great. I earn half of what I did before. But I feel much more in tune with myself. It's also been the best thing ever for my personal growth. Glad to hear you also took the jump.

@Anirban657 I have struggled with social anxiety for years. Didn't matter where, in real life or on forums. This video, and it's exercises helped me tremendously: Another thing that might help, but that's more long term, is doing enlightenment exercises. If you realize you are not your body, you won't care about what anyone thinks, because you are them.

I've come to same conclusion as well. ABSOLUTE nothingness, and ABSOLUTE infinity. It's the same thing.

My mom told me about it. She was also into spirituality and is also a psychologist. Haven't talked about it with her for years though. I might wanna do that again

@Afonso I think you have an advantage. You're younger so your brain is more plastic. Also you have less years of societal indoctrination. The only thing is that you have less years of valuable experience. But since your here, you're on the right path. Don't fall back into the traps of society, and always be critical when people around you tell you how the world works. It was only around 25 that I started to realize how other people's opinions are nothing more than that, opinions. Not something I should always try to agree with.