Ayla

I have brought this matter to @Leo Gura. He will decide who's problem it is.

Because this does? Please remain focused on the topic and opinions being expressed, and do not engage in trolling the person behind it. Read forum guidelines. Thank you.

From my own "work" (BK) I understood that these confrontations are just inside and within myself. They are only reflections of tensions inside of me. These are some posts that might help: Last piece of advice: your own inner being will keep tugging at you in the right direction, for example: if you do engage, it will tell you afterwards that it felt wrong. No matter what Mind will say, you will keep receiving a feeling that is the accurate message. You just need to keep quiet enough so you can hear it. Think of Mind as a loud 5 years old boy. Inner being is like the breath of a new-born. If the 5 y/o isn't silent, you're never going to be able to hear if and how baby's breath functions

@cloudpusher , look into Byron Katie's "Work" - youtube.

@Names are labels , this might help.

@7thLetter , this might help..

@John , I'm obviously not Eckhart, but I can relate to his story. What is happening is that most of the time, people actually CHOSE pain. Pain, as uncomfortable as it might be, it is the only "safe" ground. If you really sit down and contemplate this, you will see that we are all addicted to pain....until we're not anymore. That is one important side of the story. When pain becomes so invasive that it corners you though, the survival instinct kicks in. And at that point, as if you were in front of a tsunami, you run from it, or you will drown. You don't bring suitcases, favorite painting and your mother's last postcard. You just get out of there. Empty handed and naked sometimes. So maybe this analogy will help with the realization that you cannot bring anything from "person-hood" into enlightenment. Nothing at all. Anything you try to grab hold of, will hinder you. The more "stuff" you already have attached to you, the longer the process it will be. This is why for some people who have already worked through emotional pain the process may seem instant and permanent, while for others, a moment of realization is just the beginning of a very long path of "cleansing". Here's a bit more about this: Yet another way to look at it is that pain is like a stretcher. Think of a big hand trying to fit into a tight glove. What we don't fully realize is that pain is only there to make that glove big enough so that when dealt with properly, joy will replace it. Joy-hand is just as big as pain-hand. Only joy cannot hurt, so it cannot fit into small glove. Or, better said, your willingness to feel pain is exactly proportional with your capacity to experience joy...

It was not a decision per se. It was an evidence. Life has removed everything else from my experience. At times less gracefully than others. This is going to be a VERY personal insight.. but here I go. Life has removed job, parents, husband, son, income, savings, friends, hobbies, everything collapsed. You know how we tend to "put all our eggs in one basket"? That was a sort of a STOP sign, in any direction I was trying to put my foot next, there was another NO or STOP. At that point in my life ( October 2014) I had no spiritual insight at all, except some deep knowing that there's more to life than this. I also knew somehow that dEvil is only created by human mind, and had a feeling I've been here before. In that context, I went on my 5th floor window, decided to jump and...maybe catch the next train hehe. As my feet were dangling 20 meters above the ground and eyes were fixated at the landing place, I had seen the next 10 minutes. Me flying down, crashing body, ambulances, people's pain, crying, and then a DEEP peace. A peace so profound and so beautiful and so warm! Nothing in my life has been as peaceful. As I was looking down, a sudden realization came: that peace, was already there. There was no need to die to get it. It was just a glimpse. But that glimpse has kept me thirsty until now and helped me get through very powerful "spiritual detox". I still bask in that peace from time to time. Some tiny thing brings it about: a butterfly, a flower, a cloud, a drawing... little things like that. PEACE IS ALREADY HERE !

Little rant about meditation. I shall start by saying that I have not meditated one single hour in my life. Every time I sat down to do it, my back would ache, my nose would itch, phone would ring, neighbor would come.. even the stray cat that comes and goes to my house would come and sit in my lap the minute I started... so yeah. That being said, my whole life became a sort of a contemplation. Not one minute of my life, starting about 18 months or so was dedicated to anything else but the urge to freedom and TRUTH. No matter the situation I was in, my main goal was to distance myself from the thoughts that came, and see them for what they were. What has helped me was first and foremost, this thirst, this hunger for TRUTH! Life has put Ayla in a situation where it was finding TRUTH, or nothing. Over and over and over and over again for the last hummmmm.... 10 years? Until FINALLY I listened! What I used to disentangle from thoughts: Noah Elkrief's videos in times of "apparent" emergency - everything that seems to come, is a thought Leo's videos for giving "food to mind" - better the thoughts are about this than that, right? Byron Katie's WORK - "is this true?" "can you absolutely know that it's true?" - turn every phrase around in as many ways possible "The Artist's Way" book - write down, first thing in the morning, everything that comes up, no matter how dull and stupid I have also done a process described in Michael Brown's book - "The Presence Process" - very powerful 10 weeks process "not about feeling better but about getting better at feeling" So no, I cannot say from my own experience that meditation is the key. From what I hear it CAN BE, but it is not the only one. If the urge, the thirst, the pull is as strong as it was in this here, any tools that you find yourself using over and over again, will get you to the proper door. I should also maybe say that apart from listening to Mooji videos on YouTube, a little bit of this or the other E-teacher, I have not read a single book on it, not went to retreats, seminars, etc. Pure, sheer pain has brought me where I am. This is how pain has stopped being the enemy. This is how fear left me. What is left here, is NOT pure bliss. That also comes and goes. What's left is a honest basking in whatever comes this way. Still working in what I like to call "too solid to raise through to heaven's gates" Hope this helps someone...

"Can anyone ever know how many stalks there are in a rice field? How many turns in a river? How many layers in a cloud? Can anyone sweep the leaves of a forest, and tell the wind not to shake the trees anymore? How many leaves must an earthworm eat to make a dress of colors from the past? How much rain must fall from the sky before the ocean overflows? How many years must the moon have before it becomes old?" (from a movie called Three Seasons)

Hehehe This reminds me of a conversation I recently had with a woman that has breast cancer and was telling me that she had 1 year more to live. Can you imagine her stupor when I told her that I'm not at all sure I have that much ?

Is that important? Really think about it. If it helps you, is it important if it was the placebo or the meditation itself? For further help, you might want to read this post:

It will have its value as long as something gives value to it, then... it won't anymore I suppose.

Teaching just wants to happen in "people like that". Life expressing itself in that way somehow. Motivation implies a certain momentum and planning, which.. isn't possible when there is nothing else than present moment and nobody else "out there" to teach to.

Maybe just found out if YOU have any saying in this at all... ??? to gain credibility from whom??? ... other people?? LOL No no, what it is, is a form like this perhaps: Why indeed ??

@Mary , meditation is a TOOL. It is used to help you understand that thoughts, are just that: thoughts. When that truth begins to reveal itself, there are usually "rewards" and "positive experiences" people have. So if you want positive experiences, go do something that gives you that in a direct way. If you want to see through and be able to "drop the thoughts", either play with the length/timing of meditation, or use other techniques available. What has helped me in the past, was a very simple technique from a book called "the Artist's Way": First thing in the morning, write down 3 pages with whatever mind comes up with. (serves to empty the mind of ...ermmm.. stuff, so that it doesn't need to stray as much during the day)

Sort of. Mind will not all of the sudden say: I want to die - on the contrary, it will fight as long as it wants to with concepts and theories and experiences and unicorns... until it will hopefully one day declare "bankruptcy", exhaustion, forfait, no can do. hehe What I meant is that those teachers do no "plan" in any way to teach. Their mind has become just what it is supposed to be: a translation machine for Self. They are just letting their body-mind be "used" as life (God, Love, Universe) wants to. What comes up here when I read this, is that...even an experience of pure bliss and love ... is still ONLY an experience. It comes and it goes. This can be a wonderful way for Ego to enter through back door and keep seekers stuck in "high" and "low" illusion Ego IS concepts. Any concepts.

@Bruno , EVERYTHING that can be described, is "lower-self". So in that sense, "low" means to interpret. Now there is no thing apart from SELF, so how could we find a lower and a higher? In regards to what reference point? So in the end, if you want, the only thing that can be low about Self, is the individual belief in it, or the illusion of individuality.

This is the dying mind cornering itself. Who are we to stand in front of life manifesting itself as "teaching"? (have you ever notice how people like that cannot really repeat what they said 2 minutes ago? - because none of that is "thought". It'd just a sort of "translating". Also, their impossibility to read long texts? That is because the longer a text is, the higher the possibility for mind to begin arguing..) You have only lost interest in other MINDs ("I"s, drama etc). aside from the fact that there needs to be an "overwhelmed" and something that overwhelms it, which is yet another illusion, what we call love in this context is a "translation" of the acceptance that is being manifested. LOVE feels more impartial as a term than acceptance I suppose.

Emotions are like little children. If you've been ignoring them for a while, they won't bother to come sit with you, as they already know from experience you'll give nothing rewarding. Keep observing. Another thing is that.. you might be too scared to just observe them and you are actually blocking them. A sure sign of an integrated emotion is some kind of physical release (like a sigh, or deep breath) followed by a feeling of peace and completion.

Today I've been looking into this pull to share. There is no other to share with. This is just manifestation of consciousness, of innocence to surround itself with peace. It arises out of itself for itself. Like one of those fountains in the middle of an old European city. Giving itself force to rise and allowing itself to fall, equally beautiful. And it will go on as long as it wants to go on. There is no THIS that is more THIS than THIS. No contest, no more or less. There's nothing to compete against. Nothing to merge into. It is THIS looking at itself in the form of colored light. Child.

@Christian

How to approach any spiritual teaching: SLOW DOWN. Do NOT just read and try to figure things out. This is what is meant by "listening with your heart" instead of the mind. When you read something that you feel of value to you, treat it as if you were falling in love. It doesn't matter what mind says, your heart will keep going back to the FEEL of the [person]. So read slowly, let the words sink into you completely, verify all your senses: how does it feel in body? As soon as mind comes with arguments or appreciations or explanations, SEE them for what they are - THOUGHTS - and discard them, just for one moment. Just read/Listen. Don't try to find a meaning, don't try to figure it out. Just listen to the words. Body will give signs of the phrase that resonates best with you. Keep it close. It will feel like love, peace and freedom. No need to understand it. Also, no matter how much Mind will try to keep you away from its truth, love will keep tugging at mind, so you will keep feeling pulled towards that video or teaching or whatever its form. ANY form of thought that comes, is just a resistance. Discard it. Just for that moment. Let go of the person looking. Just LOOK.

@Travis here:

This post is wonderful @Travis