isabel

oh right lol! I did it for a while but got too hungry, so I reincluded most dairy except for eggs...

Hi, yes mostly because I love animals and I didn't stop there I've always tried to be my idea of a good person, is that what you meant?

I think it wants to be the universe and I don't think it becomes things that it doesn't want to be, I was just wondering if other people thought that same thing...

Thank you. I see all that. Are you saying that consciousness wants to express itself as compassion more than it wants to express itself as violence?

I fully agree, I would never eat meat. It is not necessary to eat meat. Okay here's the question in a different way, can the one consciousness have an experience that it doesn't want?

Thank you, I'm not despondent, I have reflected deeply on reducing suffering, I've been a vegetarian for around 28 years, spiders are welcome to live with me in my home, I enjoy flowers in the field without picking them, etc. So don't live in the material world by the laws or ideas of absolute truth? I have no desire to eat meat or kill any animals, it's not an interest of mine, I'm just wondering how it works, so tell me what you think, can a person kill an animal if that animal has not agreed to it on some level? Because it will fight for it's life so it wants to live on one level but... And don't some enlightened people in India just check out of the material world, they choose not to have families and businesses, they just sit there. So yeah? I'm asking why care about anything? People can but they don't have to...

Why not eat people though? In some cultures they did. Can you even kill and eat a person that hasn't agreed to that on some level? edit to add: I am a vegetarian and I totally get why to do it on the surface level, just wondering what's really going on here. And also I think that is an even better question: Why not murder and eat people?

ahahahaha! I did think that was me, good one!

Yes to everything you all have said, thank you.

to keep your attention, so it won't die

I saw a youtube video about this, ram dass, I think it was, went and shared LSD with a bunch of gurus and some of them loved it, some of them it had no effect and they took a lot, one said it gave them a headache lol sorry I can't find the video now...

some things you find in strip clubs: sex, nudity, pleasure, women, objectification of women, abuse of women, drug addiction, pain, suffering, etc. but any of those things will be good, bad, or neither depending on your level of consciousness

I had the abusive parents one, extreme abuse my whole life, felt like I could never leave, was working with my family and making okay money but eventually I did leave, it took a long time after that to come to terms with everything and to accept living without as much money but I am 100% better 90% of the time which is beyond amazing so I'm saying even though you might feel like you can't leave your job, you actually can and I agree with the others on the therapy, get therapy because here's the thing, I left my "situation" but I took my situation with me and continued to suffer for years, so therapy plus leaving would be best but choose at least one or the other and go from there

nothing

What do people mean when they say things like "enlightenment is not an experience" and that "it can't be known by the mind" and so on? At first I thought you would feel something in your body that is beyond thought but then that would be an experience. And if you do have some sort of enlightenment that is both beyond the mind/thoughts and body/feelings then how would you even know that you had it? omg Help, thank you!

This is amazing, I'm getting a little overwhelmed... I was going to thank you all for the info but then I thought "Who am I thanking?" and it seems like now that I'm just sitting here talking to myself...lol Do you ever get that feeling? What do you think of that?

just the fact that you're here asking questions means that a part of you believes that something will work I'm answering here because I was a lot like you, I'm also an artist and felt like a failure, had no money, was in constant physical and mental pain, hated myself, hated waking up in the morning because all it meant was facing the horrors of the day all I did was change the way that I was thinking at first I just refused to think about anything negative, I just changed all negative thoughts to anything else, even a grocery list was better to focus on that led to better and better choices for thoughts, spiritual thoughts were best for me, made me feel good, affirmations were good, etc it took a few months and my physical pain is gone, my mental pain is gone most of the time, and I'm not selling more art but I just negotiated a settlement with a company that was infringing my copyrights it was easy, they settled out of court and all I had to do was answer emails from my lawyer about a dozen times, and I just started second lawsuit with a different lawyer that will be filed this month (the lazy way to make money from art haha) if you want to try what I did then do this: each time you have a thought that makes you feel bad, be ready to let it go and think a different thought, it can anything as long as it doesn't make you feel bad, think about getting a new haircut, going to the beach, anything, then build on that if your mind tries to tell you it's not helping, then remind yourself that you do believe that it will work otherwise why would you even try?

You believe that you're lazy and that nothing helps you and that you'll never do anything with your life. If you don't like those beliefs, you can change them.

After focusing daily for a long time, I had an experience, I felt an intense joy/relief and I cried and laughed out loud, and I saw myself as something other than myself and I knew what the whole purpose of the universe was (and it was intricately hilarious by the way, beyond description), then I felt very peaceful and content for maybe a few months, my life was like nothing it had ever been before, nothing is the same any more. But now the feeling has faded a lot, it's still sort of there but I'm slipping back into getting frustrated at times and feeling anxious at times daily now. Does anyone know what happened? How do I get that feeling back? Thanks!

@Etagnwo Thank you! You are saying exactly what I saw. Yes lol! I have a tired self, a cranky self, a happy self, and I see those in other people, "oh so and so is his cranky self today" but that's not real, that is the one self playing...hahaha We're trolling ourselves, for fun.

Thanks all you guys! This forum is beyond amazing. I think I got part of it, in my wanting that feeling back all I'm doing is focusing on the fact that I don't have it. Hahaha I'm so funny. I sort of understand going beyond thought, I can do it for a few seconds or so and I feel like I can experience something that is not the thoughts of the thing in my mind, but you're saying there is more beyond that? How do you describe something that is not thought or experience, what is it called?

It started with my realizing that my daily mental and physical pain was caused by what I was focusing on at that time which was mostly memories of abuse, how unfair life was, feeling sorry for myself, and other things like intense worry about money and so on. I noticed that if I just tried to think about something else that I felt better, so I did that every day because I was in intense pain, pain is a great motivator, I watched my thoughts and reminded myself to watch and change to a better thought, watch and change, watch and change. At first I just thought about pleasant things like being at the beach or having a really nice house. I watched self help videos and noticed that the more spiritual videos caused the best feeling and so I focused on those all day, when they weren't playing I chose to focus on spiritual ideas, all the time, I started looking forward to insomnia instead of dreading it because it was another chance to focus. Waiting in line, chance to focus, walking to the store, chance to focus, and so on. I also played om chanting sounds on continuous replay, I made up simple mantras for myself like "I am in peace, I am healthy" bunches of them, then when a painful thought came I could change it to that, or try to. And then one day it just all kind of came together, all the stuff made sense, all of it for a minute, and now that I'm reading this forum, I see that was probably just a glimpse so I'm super excited to see more... This is real to me because my physical pain is gone now and some other health problems that I had are gone.

@CreamCat Absolutely it is at times, in my life I've been ground up, spit out and thrown back in there over and over, I had a horrific childhood, etc, etc...which led to abuse in my adult relationships and eventually a life of daily physical and mental pain. But that's why I'm here now. I was driven to a point of not being able to take it any more so in searching hard on how to get out I found way more than I would have otherwise, and that's also why I know that whatever I'm onto here is real, my physical pain is gone, and my mental pain is gone a lot of the time. Also, what I see in my mind is that if there was no suffering then we would not know what contentedness is, there would no contrast.

@CreamCat It's a playground for us, we didn't create it exactly, we more became it. It was so funny to me that tears just streamed down my face, we "created" or became the entire universe and then we think it's real lol and it's not even real. I mean it is real it's just not real in the way that I thought it was before. When you think about a thing in the universe, the thing is the thought, but if you take the thought about it away, it becomes something way different, and it works for any thing in the universe, including people, and it just goes on and on like that... I saw that and it gave me great peace, yet earlier today I got so frustrated I wanted to throw my air conditioner off my balcony... Also, I'm not saying that I'm right at all, I just felt that and it feels good and right to me, I fully know that I could be wrong or crazy but I don't mind, if I'm wrong I don't think it makes any difference, like right now just being in this forum and talking about what happened is bringing that peaceful feeling back...so idk what do you think?

just experimenting with the law of attraction, I wanted to attract a feather into my life, I imagined feathers and I "knew" I would see a feather on my walk to the store, so I walked out the door and right there was a dead bird, immediately I thought of the feathers that I wanted ...but then what the hell? and there are no coincidences? so then why? why would the feathers come that way? that is not what I wanted also I did find another single feather on my walk, I looked all over as I walked and I did find one, it was a lot smaller than what I thought but it was there what does any of the that mean, if anything? thanks