Endangered-EGO

A lot of mediums are moneygrabbing manipulating con artists, who are so deep in it that they sometimes unknowingly hurt their clients. A few days ago we had a guy here who claimed that a medium told him he had an entity attached to it and that it would cost him 700$ to perform rituals to get it away. I know a woman who claims to perceive things in me, and helped me open my chakras, it had a positive impact on me, but if it's really as real as she claims I don't know. She is doing that for the sake of consciouness, not for money. So if you want to be safe, look for people who do it for free. Then you can be pretty sure they don't want to scam you. (They might want to introduce you to their cult though). When conscious people can help, they help, because that's how consciousness works. I have been on both ends of it. I had dreams come true that are impossible to be coincidence, but never intentionally, and never from someone else. Share the dialogue if you don't mind.

Here I am again, I've been practicing a lot the last days, and now I write that down to remember how I got here and what I believe to be causing issues for me for a long time. I have practiced a lot of concentration and playing with awareness and awareness being aware of itself. The previous times, I didn't know how I got here, but now I guess I know the direction. I don't know what it's called what I am "seeing", so I am calling it the void, I believe this void is the wormhole to the nothingness. Now what happens: easy: I focus on an object and then the focus disappears. Where does it go? Nowhere, into the void. I notice I can actively focus on something I see, and then allow the focus to collapse and awareness just being itself, not replaced by anything. So that's what I mean by void. That's freaking me out a little bit again, not a strong fear, but still fear. And that's pushing me away from it, and I believe that's what is pushing me away from the nothingness for years. (I was in the Dark night dpdr 5 year ago, and my ego struggled ever since, doing everything to get away from the nothingness unconsciously. What I unconsciously learned to do was to NEVER let awareness be aware of itself/the empty void, by focusing on some thing/distraction, and that caused a lot of distress/anxiety etc. Those mini-cessations kind of feel good in a way, but noticing the absence of objects, gives me a little fear now, and I'm not even close to the nothingness. What I am doing now is not playing too much with it and being mindful of the thoughts:" Oh no you are going to get lost into the void, for god knows how long" and mindful of the absence sometimes. I promised myself to PUSH through once and for all, but I'm just too much of a wuss to drop into it. The fear of opening a door I can't close. I feel good today, but I'm not sure what to do. I was told "just do it", "don't do it with force" and "do something completely different". It's rare when I am able to be at the verge of the void, (maybe once every 2 months), and I am always backing up, and the next day and few next weeks I promise myself I should push through, I haven't succeeded yet. I'm going to write down exactly what I do and play a little with it, to remember for the next days. It's basically like being aware of the defocusing of awareness instead of the appearing of the object of consciousness. I believe shinzen young calls those "awareness of vanishings" and "mini-nirvanas".

Bro, scam. They prey on people. I met a lot of people who are into consciousness. If they can help they do it for the sake of consciousness. Yellow consciousness and above doesn't ask 700$ to save someone from "demonic possession". If you believe in that you'll find someone who does it for free. I'll do it for free if I can help. What most psychics are doing is blatant manipulation and nonsense. Ask them, they probably don't know basic mystical stuff. Catholic priests do it for free too. It's common, so if you have a church ask them. They probably have purity. There are online ressources that help you do it on your own also. I know a woman who does past life regressions for free, for the sake of expanding consciousness. She is enlightened (nirvana). If there's too much money, there ususally is a lack of consciousness.

@Nahm "Divide and conquer", "untangle and be free". I'm doing that! @Eternity I am afraid of the pain the void can cause. That's it. I actually have that book, it's giant haha.

@Flyboy Well I am the perfect example for going all the way through leads to ego backlash. I believe I understand, that this terrifying fear of the nothingness, trained my ego to NEVER allow awareness to play with itself. This lead to anxiety depression alcohol abuse insomnia etc. ofc that's just speculation, but I believe that's the case. I need to get there more often, but it's very rare, I cannot play with it because of the rarity, however maybe if I increase my practice, I will be able to. I remember from 2015-2016, the time that the nothingness showed up, there is a point of no return. The so called event horizon of the black hole. Once you're there willingly or unwillingly it swallows your being into the singularity. That's where the love is supposed to show up, but love doesn't show up if there is fear I guess. Can you tell me how it feels for you to be really close to it? Just so I can compare what's happening? Do you also have that "nauseous pain" in the chest?

@herghly Yes, that's how you get the best results from meditation. Most people say you should focus on the breath on the tip of the nose because it's subtle and requires a lot of concentration to notice the in/out breath and break. So do that as intensively as possible. Play with more relaxation or more wakefullness to see when you're able to focus best. After a while you should be able to enter access concentration. effortless locking attention on the sensation with subtle thoughts coming and going in the background. From there you can get into jhana 1.

Yesterday I meditated quite a lot, and ended the meditation with letting everything go. Even the desire to focus or not get lost in thought. Suddenly I felt like a very quick emotional pain with the thought. How the hell is this absurd thing (past trauma) possible in the universe. The degree of disturbity and absurdity about that thing that came up was INTENSE. I don't want to go into details about that, but after the meditation I got mildy irritated and got really really angry and couldn't calm down. I didn't try to be honest. How do you explain that. I was told it is a good thing, but I am not sure. Is it my ego that subconsciously supresses anger and emotional pain, that sneaks up when the ego is down? Now, today I feel good, better than before the meditation. Ego backlash? I'm going to watch that video now, just to be sure. I guess these are the same walls that break during shamanic breathing and after taking psychedelics. On the other hand I think intense meditation could be harmful to me. Not sure.

@Nahm okay okay, a slight readjustment into the now is what I need, and creation of sth, instead of focussing only on the dissolution of the walls and what's behind it, which is illusory in nature. Less story, more presence! Good good, thanks again for your detailed analyses of the situation!

@VeganAwake I know you are trying to help, and I agree that is a direct pointer, but this often is not enough. "It's me, it's my ego. I know I am deep into the illusion, that's why I want to kill my ego" is the classical reponse to that. Maybe we should continue, after "who is asking", to say "What is the thing that thinks about 'who is asking' ". "Is the awareness doing that or is it just thoughts.". "What are you NOW when you are not asking". "Does the thing that asks, have a substance? Or can it also make random noises?". "What fuels the question? Other questions/thoughts?". "What's the questions without a verbal thought?" I'm sure some people here can do it 10x better than me and have done it 100s of time, but "who is asking?" can be taken the wrong way and often doesn't go deep enough. Maybe we should have copy-paste notes with every possible reaction to it, and responses to a pointer. I might create something the next days.

@WhatAWondefulWorld Look man. Enlightenment is heavily sugar-coated. "It's the end of suffering and reunification with God." Honestly, best I can say is: it's not. It has stages of liberation and stages of realisation. Liberation from the ego is to have an insight, that thoughts have no base, and that the lower self is a self feeding thought-loop. If you want that, you absolutely have to contemplate thoughts, types of thoughts, ego and spiritual ego. I can almost guarantee you, you have a spiritual ego, that's basically your "controled thoughts" fighting your random thoughts, because your "controled thoughts" want to get the random thoughts to enlightenment. If you contemplate thoughts, thought patterns, thought leading to emotion leading to other thought. It's a matter of hours until you realise something, not days, not months, not years. And that something, you'll feel it as freedom. That's liberation from the ego. I don't know if it's helpful if I tell you what happens, because you have to take the initiative to find out. Here it is: Mind has control, and can't stop thinking about thoughts, there is a problem "I AM NOT ENLIGHTENED", "I HAVE TO FIND A SOLUTION TO THAT", and once you realise that thought just react to thought, that react to emotion, you'll know that it's not "you" and that you can stop the thoughts, without suppressing them, because it's pointless. You'll realise that the "do-er", the "decider", the one that has to solve that problem is just thoughts. There's nothing YOU can do, or cease to do. That's usually the first degree of liberation. However you can forget that, and there's nothing you can do to remember it. I call that understanding the paradox. You'll see. However, that will only lead you to (temporarily probably) cease hurting yourself with thoughts. Suffering still occurs at an emotional and physical level. That's IMO the easiest but necessary step towards enlightenment you can have. If you're like me, you are going to forget it, and have to go back again. The mind WILL untangle itself. After that, for becoming the witness or dropping into equanimity, you'll have to meditate and do self inquiry. becoming the witness feels like everything you do happens on it's own and your mind will freak out. This takes away a HUGE deal of emotional suffering. There are Equanimity states beyond that, that takes away a big part of physical suffering. This is very real. If you want to go towards liberation, I recommend adyashanti. He's not so obsessed about truth, but has a fast and comfortable practice towards liberation. You can change your perspective towards enlightenment. Successful meditation with letting go is not the path towards enlightenment, it is enlightenment. But hey, guess what. I still suffer, mentally, emotionally and physically. I had states of deep equanimity, and there are very probably people here that are in that state 24/7.

@Cepzeu Neal Donald Walshe said in his book, that "God's answer" is always the highest (and loving? not sure) thought. And everyone understands God as much as he can understand. What's your take on that. I tried to channel God. Writing with God, is kind of therapeutic. Intuitively I love the response I get from myself and it really helps. How would you classify the answers you get? Highest thought, confrontational, loving? Here a little QnA from my journal. I also noticed I can split the mind in 2, consciously creating a duality, but as soon as I don't need it anymore it merges again. It's kind of weird, but really easy to do and I guess that's how praying is supposed to work. ++++++++++++++++++++ Me: Okay I am going to do something a little painful. I can barely hurt myself consciously. God: That’s how you protect yourself from yourself. You realise you cannot hurt yourself too much, you always bring yourself back to harmony, that’s how you are programmed. And you are attracted to beauty and pleasure/love. You also believe that beauty/please and love is somewhere to get, and the road is made out of suffering, pain, despair etc. ++++++++++++++++++++

@Moksha It's hard because you realise there is nothing you can do, everything you try to actively "do" leads nowhere. What's the fix for that?

Doesnt seem to be that good lmao. But I want meditation technology haha.

I know that some of you have already tried muse, I'm unsure how reliable it is, so I haven't bought it yet. There is one new thing that came out: Neorythm omnipemf headband that actually stimulates the brain. I read claims that this device can drastically increase meditation right away. Any thoughts or review/experiences with this headband or neurostimulation in general? NeoRhythm by Omnipemf - PEMF wearable device for home use. https://omnipemf.com/

@dalink You're describing it very vaguely, but maybe we have the same thing. Whenever I let myself become absorbed by "IT" I instantly become afraid. However If I continue into the emptiness, the fear of dying comes up as a nauseous pain in the chest area, my skin feels weird and it beats me to the ground, I remember the nothingness that's behind it, but it's hard to "push through". It's like your Body pulls the last alarm saying you shouldn't go through it. I always tell myself, fuck it, next time I am going to do it, going through no matter what and then I become a little bitch as soon as it beats me to the ground into the foetal position. I fucking remember what's behind it. DPDR is spiritual enlightenment. Psychosis isn't. However psychosis can occur.

I am contemplating language/universe/things/objects and questions. Wanted to share my thoughts. So I just found out, I am not able to understand anything with mind. I can just make "pictures", get information, compare things to finally be able to link unfamiliar things with familiar things. THAT is NOT understanding what a thing itself is. Once we are familiar with something we just accept that it is like it is, and don't question the thing further, but the familiar thing is still NOT understood. It always comes to the same mystery of absolute not knowing/understanding anything. For example: What is a scale? -it's something to measure an other thing. --> doesn't explain what it is, just what it is used for. -it works by being pushed down if something is put on top --> doesn't explain... just "what happens" -it works exactly like when things fall down they go "down" on the scale. --> explains the things that we are familiar with are (gravity) Leads to the next question what is gravity? To "understand" gravity you can use a model which is NOT gravity, just something that expresses the model in a similar way. But explaining how something works is not the "thing" being understood. GRAVITY just is. Things simply fall down. A scale simply is. Every thing that exists just EXISTS. There is no explanation for (the essence of) things. How come we believe we understand that things fall down? We simply don't understand it. Newton questioned it, and invented the concept (discovered) of gravity. Gravity is just a model. Before Newton, things just fell down, now they fall down with a story attached to it. We just want to understand things we are not familiar with, we never understand them, we just become so familiar with them that we "forget to ask". There is also no question-answer thing going on, there is just curiosity and confusion, that just stops when we become familiar with something. Where does asking questions eventually lead to? Asking questions always lead to the SAME MYSTERY that cannot be put into words. What is that Mystery? I cannot point towards it, I cannot think about it, and I cannot distinguish it from anything? Any tips on what I am doing? I would just deconstruct everything until I realise there is just ONE mystery.

Put it perfectly in one sentence. @Mu_ Yes, However I never had an awakening during the contemplation, I had one shortly after the "where am I located"-contemplation when merging with the object during meditation. Maybe I could contemplate about every aspect of the self in a sequence, like, what is the me-story, where is me in the body, where is me in see/hear/feel/thoughts. But it's kind of a dead end. Neti-neti kind of has an effect on me though.

@SamueLSD please feel free to share your homework with the class, if you intend to contemplate that question.

Going to continue the contemplation tommorow. Not sure if it's supposed to lead me asking more questions about "how is it possible that" and increasing the feeling of "mystery" and "wow". I guess that's a good sign? This led me to the question, how is it possible that doors open without me actively doing something, how can I just picture doors in my thoughts and it's mechanics. How do I "remember" how a door works, how is it possible that I am simply able to consciously picture images of doors opening. Out of pure nothing. The knowledge and thoughts just arise in my experience. This very complex "thing"/"process" just comes up out of nothing, and then it goes away. I am not always aware that I know how a door works, the hand opens them on its own (without me recalling the knowledge). Not sure if I should continue going broad or if I should go deep into the first door question.

@Tim R You see, the problem I have with miracles (and siddhis) is the danger that comes with it from both sides. Someone who claims to be able to perform miracles and has witnesses, can have really incredible powers over people, because they are seen as the incarnation of god (like jesus). And then they can make you do things you would never do on your own. The excuse is "oh it's just your ego that wants to know", when you are ready you will see it. If someone actually is able to perform some miracles, he/she would be crucified also today from blue people. Or would have to fear being used for his "capacities" in military/politics etc. from orange people. I believe in some sort of hyperintuitive capacities in most people. It has to be the case that some people have stronger capacities than others. But I would have to see the miracle to believe in something that would actually correspond to an actual miracle. I'm so so curious, so if someone is able to show me something they can do, then I would love you to message me. Or if you have specific teachings that work.

@Leo Gura what things? I assume you don't mean at the level of mind? @James123 Yes, I know that, but the "I" is also a word, I am attacking the "I" from multiple angles. This is the "I" in the world. When I do self inquiry I look for the I located in space in the Body. I is also a word. And "What/Who am I" is a question. The thought-question "Who am I" is to lead into the curiosity of the sense of "I". But If I don't contemplate language and "understanding", I might lose myself in "thinking" as a "me" again. @EmptyVase Yes, that's it. I did had my first true liberation experience, after chasing my own tail contemplating free will. It was a sober but really meaningful experience. I could be deluding myself, but since then I believe I am able to act, not from the mind, but from somewhere else, and am not really lettng the mind do whatever it wants, but I am able to relax the thoughts, from a different place. It's like I decided I wouldn't allow the mind to cause me suffering. It changed my perspective on the "problems". However it's not permanent unfortunately.

@BipolarGrowth Depends on what you mean by "get you any further". To use it to do things it's always great to map the socalled "understanding" in your mind. But you don't understand reality "better" because you can never know what it is, just "how-it-behaves", by comparison with other familiar things you take for granted. Here is the perfect example of a visualisation of gravity in 3D. This thing happens in 3D, gravity is in 4D. The blue layer is supposed to be spacetime. "Oh that's how gravity works". But NO that's not how it works. It just behaves in a very similar way. So we know how it behaves by something we are familiar with (this model). But now we can ask the same questions about why the marbles act that way. We would not understand it, because it's not about knowing it, it's about being familiar with it. We could go as far as asking "what is movement?". But we wouldn't understand that either, because movement just IS.

@OctagonOctopus Yeah, the funny thing is, even though I now know that I can't know, I still believe I know some things that will soon come up. For example my computer is running on electricity with a battery. So there is a lot of little tiny blue dots coming from the wall through the cable into my computer where they are magically transformed into "that". Just a fun story basically.

"It's not the mind that should accept" He perfectly explains the difference between higher-self acceptance and spiritual-ego trying to accept. The question I ask myself, even when I get this: "But what should I do then" --> but it's the ego that's asking that question, but it keeps wondering what it can do. I guess the answer is laughing at the question, It's not me that's asking the question, it's the mind highjacking "control". Do you understand the same thing as me?

@GreenLight The thinker is not enlightened. Raise your left arm spontaneously, and realise there's just arm-raising. No ego. Now the ego will highjack this with thoughts. "Okay let's see what is going to happen if I raise my left arm", "I raised the arm, who else would do that". But thoughts have no substance. They just "think" about stuff that is happening, and make it seem like the thoughts are in control, but thoughts aren't. I am going to create a duality here for you to realise it, don't take it as something spiritual, but inquire into it. When you respond to me, observe the difference between the typing and the thinking about what you type. The typer is enlightened, there's typing and there is thoughts. "I am not enlightened" is referring to the ego. "I am the Body" doesn't mean anything, because it's just thoughts thinking thoughts. There is no controling "I" inside your head. That's the illusory lower self I. But if you say I, you refer to the thinker. You are not (only) the thinker. One year ago, I hated people pointing this out to me when I was in the same situation. "BUT THE ILLUSION FEELS REAL". No most of the time the illusion is not even present! I'm not sure you should proceed, but if I was you I would try to see the absurdity of thinking "I am going to raise my left arm now" then to raise the arm. And then you do something spontaneously afterwards. Maybe that's going to make you realise that the thoughts about doing things are just noise. YOU do that, don't THINK why "you" (ego you) should or shouldn't do that. Do things in-between thoughts. This is not classical self inquiry, it doesn't even need practice. You know you are doing it right, when you realise the absurdity and are a little confused and laugh. It's very liberating. Some people call that enlightenment, (I call it liberation from ego). You can forget that you are liberated from ego. In fact there's nothing you can do to remember it. But enlightenment is something like realising the godliness of self/existence. Then there is also liberation from suffering, no amount of physical pain can make you suffer. I guess (but could be wrong) nobody on this forum is "permanently" liberated from physical pain.