Markus

Reflecting on what's been happening there seems like a good place to start.

@RawJudah If something makes you feel like shit and you see through it, that's a good indication you shouldn't engage in it. Just try and relate to women in a more genuine and non-manipulative way. As for sources, Alan Roger Currie is quite non-manipulative though sorta low-consciousness, Zan Perrion is interesting.

@Harikrishnan I recommend doing what you can and being genuine in relationships. Not adding to your prejudices based on questionable theories is a good start.

@Tistepiste Accepting is not an activity you can do. At best, you can fight less. Which is a good thing to do when it occurs to you and seems possible. You want to open yourself up to experiencing the stuff you can't accept. Don't try to accept it, just suffer it, without distraction.

I think the wanting to tell people stage exists for the vast majority. It's hardly a good idea to follow through though, lol.

@Evelyn I guess it could indeed be connected to what you've gone through, since it seems quite unusual to have regular nightmares of this severity. One possibility would be waiting it out and trying to face them head on, and see if things get easier to manage over time. If it disturbs your life a lot, maybe try to find a fine balance with regard to mindfulness and don't push yourself too hard. Therapy and techniques addressing the subconscious could be useful, though if you can't access the fears you're having in waking life maybe there's no use for that. I only ever had severe nightmares when I used antidepressants and skipped a day. I'd dream going insane and going to what seemed like hell, really bizarre and frightening stuff. Interestingly the horribleness seemed to make me surrender to it, and I had my first glimpses of no-self after waking up from these.

@Peo It's generally not a good idea to communicate to people about non-duality. What would make them think you're crazy if you don't talk to them about it? Talking to them about it seems more likely to make you seem crazy.

@hikmatshiraliyev No technique guarantees enlightenment. Some people awaken with some technique relatively quickly, some don't in years and years. I do think it is a good technique.

@Hansu The subconscious is processes happening within you that you can't decipher or even notice. You could say there's a surface level of conscious thoughts, and many more subtle layers underneath that.

@John Charles Our beliefs and fears act as our own protection from things we can't handle. Which is why them being shaken is so scary. We're protected yet trapped by our ego. There's no way to gain more freedom from the self without experiencing negative emotions that come with that process.

Sure. I just don't see anything to suggest I'm wrong. I assume it because I see a lot of lack of understanding and craving in what people say, including myself. To give an example of a recent thing I noticed with myself, it is the amount of comfort and escapism that I've received from certain spiritual beliefs, such as the eternalness and timelessness of the self. Of course that's just an egoic mechanism. The ego takes the insight into emptiness, and claims "I am it, therefore I am eternal." And I see the same thing a lot here. Even a bit worse is people believing they're god, which seems pretty exclusive to people using psychedelics. Another thing is people throwing non-duality at people's legitimate emotional problems, as if that'll help them. I think there's a lot to the path people don't really grasp. They think they'll awaken and just not identify with their ego and that's that. I used to think like that. Didn't really work out though, because it ends up as self-deluding. There's no real selflessness and understanding of the perspective of others.

@Joseph Maynor Whether or not the Buddha was completely free of craving (the whole concept of nirvana and escaping the cycle of samsara would suggest he was), none of us are anywhere near him.

@Tony 845 Ain't nobody here a Buddha. Some people with various degrees of insight and plenty of ego.

You could invent countless techniques using that basic idea though. Maybe there'll be something you like.

@StillSearching Self-esteem issues are a tough thing for people to overcome. If you want to have a good relationship, this is not something you can ignore. If you really care about this person you might try to confront her about it (in a loving way...as much as that is possible) and encourage her to work on her self-esteem/get help. The deeper thing is though, you can't really count on her to change. You could give her a chance, but it is very possible the relationship will not work out. There's a lot of sweet people out there with some good qualities who can be problematic as partners due to insecurity, that's just the reality of it.

Can't say for certain since both I and some awakened people I know have plenty of cravings left. I think the craving that binds people to samsara and causes suffering is a different mechanism than bodily signals and impulses in their pure form (sexual desire, hunger, physical discomfort). Awakening or entering non-duality is a major step for people, seeing beyond the constraints of identification with the body-mind. After that, some people may settle. With a relatively stable emotional life, it's not all that bad of a place to be, and it's quite remarkably better and more freeing than duality. Just like some people find relative stability and satisfaction in duality. Others, who have bigger emotional issues, or more difficult life circumstances, or something like chronic pain, can still experience immense dissatisfaction and suffering. Another way to say this is, awakened people have a lot of ego and craving left, and under the right circumstances those things will be triggered. That can open up a cyclical process of breaking down and building the ego back up, dropping fragments of it each time. Aspects of self are seen through and then the self tries to once again redeem itself, to redeem samsara. That can go on for a long time until there's an undeniable experience of the very nature of life being dukkha (inherent lack of satisfaction), and there is no possibility of redemption. It is seen clearly that satisfaction cannot be found in this life. That craving is an inescapable loop. This realization, which can repeat itself again and again more clearly, leads to dispassion, which leads to cravings starting to completely fall away, as the futility of their mechanism is seen. And that will supposedly continue until there's nothing left. Until the entire mechanism that traps us is samsara is burnt out.

@David Hammond The mind does indeed not vanish with awakening. Which is why I consider it silly for people to bs themselves into thinking they don't suffer. With good enough circumstances and relative stability, it is just another form of denial, just like people in duality trying to deny their problems. However empty you may be, suffering is suffering. Whether you are somebody suffering or nobody suffering. The Buddha was talking about actual elimination of craving and desire, an actual falling away of the ego, which is not at all the same thing as simple awakening.

How exactly is that the end of suffering, it is plain contradiction.

Taking this thread seriously is a distraction.

@Joker_Theory Leo has a vid on concentration meditation, think it's called concentration vs meditation. You basically take any perception, like two fingers touching, or anything else, and focus on that intensely for a very short period (few minutes). And build from there. Check out the vid.

@Pouya Yea. Better get used to it cause the more you develop the more you'll see certain character flaws and lack of perspective in pretty much every source out there. Jordan Peterson, Noam Chomsky and Ken Wilber all have things they're knowledgeable about and good points they make, but they're also flawed like any human.

@Pouya It's like with anything, take the valuable parts and ignore the rest. I'd try to focus on the technical understanding of success and whatever fields you want to be successful in, while drawing your motivation and values from more high-consciousness sources.

@Pouya I don't understand your question.

@FoxFoxFox Yep. Unfortunately seems hard to get through to genuine fear masked behind hateful and aggressive ideology and a facade of toughness. I think there's generally a severe lack of willingness to be vulnerable and genuine among people with such red-orange values.

Based on the little I looked into it it seems like he was really invested in some racist fears. Some of the talking points are quite common among certain communities and youtubers.