Raptorsin7

I'm not a muslim. I hate when people word things in terms of religious dogma. But thanks anyways

@Angelite Ahh ok. I definitely don't want to be tripping constantly, and i want to refine my life not uproot the entire thing. Right now I want to live a happy, normal life. Maybe once I get what I want from a normal life i'll go after some this is more out there stuff, but if that's what the third eye will get me then I am skeptical. Thanks

@Anna1 If you can get all your necessary nutrients in one meal then I say go for it.

@Eph75 I'm not talking about awakening here. Do you think i need awakening to truly love my life?

@Nahm I would take peace. But i haven't experienced either one of those states long enough to really know.

I feel like I am only a few days removed from waking and thinking to my self the follow thoughts: Wow I feel amazing, I am so happy, My life feels amazing i am so lucky to live this life, music sounds amazing right now, I enjoy activities more than i ever have, my life feels like an amazing dream. I don't feel like this now. But i recognize that there is nothing about my life that would prevent me from feeling incredibly happy about it, your actual life doesn't really have much to do with how you feel about it. My life could feel perfect, it could feel amazing. But it doesn't. How do i find that feeling of contentment and perfection of life. I don't mean literal perfection, as in i don't have anything to improve. I also don't believe that I need to get a thing to be happy, happiness comes from within, i just don't know how to access it.@Eph75

@Sahil Pandit Do you mean meditating with a quiet mind not lost in thought?

I just finished a 90 minute float, and I spent the time just going through my thoughts and trying to work out the issues with my inner dialogue. I hear so much about how you have to let go of thoughts and you have to learn just detach from thoughts. But i feel like my thoughts are incredibly important, and in order to improve my life i need to go into the thoughts to improve. I feel like i have heard so much spiritual dogma that it's clouding some of my decision making. I'm sure these cliches and spiritual truisms are genuinely true, but unless I experience them for myself they won't be useful to improve my life. Spiritual dogma is a real issue, but I don't want to go on about it at length. I feel like i'm over my rut, i'm very thankful (: I spent about 4-5 days masturbating multiple times per day, waking up late, not wanting to go to class, skipping yoga, etc. It was rough because I was aware of what was happening but i felt like i couldn't doing anything because of weak will. After dragging myself to one yoga class, it sparked something in me and i felt great after it was over. Yoga has been a great habit, i'm very excited to see the impact it has on my life. I'm glad my ruts over, but i still have a lot of work to do. My day to day experience still isn't as magical as i know it could be, and i need to find a way to move my life in the right direction. The next major thing I need to improve is my diet, my diet right now is awful I eat take out for literally every meal. I've been procrastinating buying vegetables for my smoothies, even though the store is legit 2 minutes from my apartment ): I need to be better, and i think the key is to act as if. I need to set the goal in my mind, and then tell myself to fake it until i make it.

Learn about intermittent fasting. You want to eat only in a 6 or 8 hour period, and spend the rest of the day fasting. This one is huge, if you can implement this i bet you will notice great results. Also, if you can just fast for 24 hours (or more) this will also be great for weight loss. Good luck

Good luck man. If you put forth the effort you will achieve what you want. Start going to the gym and start eating healthier. Learn how to change your mindset and learn how to act in a different then how you are acting now. In order for your life to change, YOU NEED TO CHANGE IT, if you stay committed you will see signs in your everyday life that will call you to be a better person. Act on those challenges and you will get there. I have faith, you sound like an awesome person. I love your attitude in this post.

@The Blind Sage I love the float tank! I've done it countless times, but i'm not able to get into a deep/blissful meditative state yet. I've been doing self-inquiry meditation recently, and i've noticed that self-inquiry produces similar results as 90 minute floats, at least for me. I'm hoping to get some breakthroughs in the tank, i'm going tonight, and i'll definitely do a post if i have some profound insights while in there.

I just did a 90 minute float in an isolation tank, and when i brought my attention to the present set of emotions/feelings and tried to let go, I found there so much tension in the present moment and i just couldn't let it go. I tried to say to myself "let it go" and then see what happens, but i just felt like I was aware of the fact that i clearly have not let go fully, and yet i have no idea how to let go further.

@Light Lover My diet is terrible, i eat a lot of fast food and don't eat a lot of vegetables. But i do a lot of yoga and meditation, so i'm curious how much progress i can make without cleaning up my diet. That said, i don't have great energy throughout the day, and my mood isn't always as good as i feel it could be. So it could be my diet is hurting me in ways i'm not fully conscious of haha.

Has anyone experienced a link between self-inquiry meditation and increased nausea and motion sickness. Recently i've had pretty bad motion sickness from riding the bus to school, and i'm thinking it might be related to doing self inquiry meditation where i try to turn attention basically to my eyes/behind my head and it usually gives me a weird headache. My diet also sucks so i'm thinking it's probably that but i'm curious if any other people have had this experience meditating.

@Nahm Ok

I just did a 45 minutes of self inquiry and i felt like was close to seeing how my self is a just another set emotions/feelings that i'm aware of in each moment, but when i realized i might be close to awakening i started to wonder if awakening even felt that good or if it will be super scary and i won't actually like what i find. Anyone else go through something similar on their spiritual journey?

I have been black sliding for the past 4 or 5 days. For example, i've been eating a lot of junk food, i've stopped waking up early and going to yoga, i'm spending hours just mindlessly surfing the web, etc. I'm still meditating and i haven't gone completely off the rails in my life, but it's definitively not where i want to be. Any tips for recovering from a black slide? A big problem right now is that i feel like shit so i eat shit food which then makes me feel even worse.

@Nahm No, when i close my eyes and then start moving my head, "I" am aware of the movement of the head. It's like im watching it from the inside of my eyes. I was under the impression that awakening will occur spontaneously at some point during concentration on the self, or what ever my awareness goes to whenever i try to shine my attention on what 'I' think i am. It seems like you're trying to get me to some logical understanding that all the things i think of as me aren't actually me. Do you think if i truly understood your questions and @zeroISinfinity 's question that it would produce an awakening. I don't know how to interpret your advice tbh...

@zeroISinfinity But the mind can be afraid during the waiting, and this will prevent the one from truly revealing itself?

@Nahm When i close my eyes and move my head around, I am that which is watching the head move around. But, when i look for the watcher i don't find anything. I feel like im close to awareness moving off "me" and moving into the world but idk

@Meditationdude Hey, the backslide actually started before i smoked weed. I was hadn't smoked in over 2 months, and ive been backsliding for about 5 days, and only 2 days ago i started smoking again. But i agree that weed + back slide can be a disaster if im not careful. I think im going to limit weed to only when i do the float tank, so maybe 1 or 2 times a week

"When we hit our lowest point we are open to the greatest change" It's from the avatar the legend of korra tv series. I've actually found truth in it in my own life, the happiest i've ever been was right after i overcame a year long depressive episode that ended with me applying some self help techniques and producing life changing results. Just wanted to share it (:

Hey guys here's an excerpt from my self-actualization blog i want to share with you guys. I don't if it's appropriate to double post like this so mods feel free to shut it down or let me know how that works. Tonight i smoked weed and spent 90 minutes in the float tank. I came out with some insights, i'm nervous i won't be able to apply them because i'm in a rut right now, but we will see. List of insights I have a formula for improving my life based on principles from the book "Psycho-Cybernetics" combined with moment to moment mindfulness. Set a goal with your thoughts, to overcome some worldly issue you are dealing with. For example, right now i need to clean my apartment but i've been procrastinating. After you deposit the goal, you must let go to the moment, and let your body and mind go to work to accomplish the goal; use mindfulness to prevent getting lost in thought and just let your self do the work, all the while being mindful of the moment and trying to see when you have fallen off track. Repeat until the goal is accomplished, have faith YOU will find a way to make it happen and trust your instincts about how to solve the problem. I believe this method will work when applied to any immediate or feasible long term goal, as long as it is consistently applied so as to build momentum in one's life. I see a lot of people on this forum skeptical about the benefits of weed with meditation and self inquiry. I don't know if this bias is based on their own negative experiences with weed and stoners, or if they recognize some fundamental flaw in the substance that prevents from it being effective for self actualization work. I was told to judge something by the fruit it bears, so i will begin to incorporate weed into my self-actualization work, like meditation, and judge the results for myself.

@fortifyacacia3 So just surrender to the moment each time i recognize i'm in a funk? Is my backslide an inversion ritual like the purge?

@fortifyacacia3 @EternalForest I recommend not showing any critiques of rationalism or the orange paradigm. I am very much an orange minded person, and although i agree with Leo on the limits of rationalism with respect to spiritual development/self-actualization work, those kinds of videos are annoying and not really effective at convincing people in deep orange (i could be wrong). I would recommend videos about happiness or self-development, because your "objective-minded friend" is much more likely to resonate to with videos that can show him some near term benefit.