Endangered-EGO

@Nahm Am I aware? What in this entire world is also aware? There is just awareness of things. I noticed I just caught myself thinking about the vicious circle again, somehow I get really identified with it. Even though there is just awareness of it like awareness of other "things" Wait I am going to try to observe the awareness doing it's thing... I think I am the meta-thinker, the thoughts that stop the thoughts or decide which thoughts I want or don't want. I am the thoughts fighting with the thoughts. Maybe that is what I am identified with. I'm observing it happening as I write this. 5 minutes later: Oh damn, all these years and I just identify with the second thoughts that fight the first thoughts as soon as awareness comes to the thoughts, but there are only thoughts... I'm going to continue your experiment and describe the perceiver : it's awareness. I imagine a Body and life without a perceiver being a robot in meat "without awareness". That's a thought about the material universe and souls... But there is just awareness. I know what I am doing, and just realised how stupid this is: I made the distinction between thoughts that happen, and thoughts that are controled and controling in nature. If I adopt the do-nothing meditation successfully, I don't identify with thoughts, because they are not controling thoughts, because I let them free. I bet I am going to identify with the 3rd thoughts that arise now haha. first random thought -second controling thought - followed by "aha that's a controling thought, that's not me, this thought is me"- thought. I don't believe that it's that simple, but the not-belief are also thoughts, just inside awareness. Dear God maybe you just triggered a chain reaction... I hope so. "That said, are you strongly identified with the seeker" @No Self put it in 3 words, but I needed it explained to me like you did. What do you believe I should do? I bet that If I am not identifying with the controling thoughts, I am going to identify with the 3rd thoughts or with the "stopping-thoughts-thought" or the "accepting-thought thought" or the "switching awareness process" that stops thoughts by focussing on something else. I am also going to let what you wrote sink in, reread it tommorow and see if that is still has the same effect on me. Any other advice? You just opened my eyes to the obvious fact that I identify with the seeker. @No Self Next time explain it to me as if I was a little child, or else I won't get it haha.

To be honest I have no Idea what-the-fuck I am doing and everything I do seems absurd in retrospect.

@Nahm On a subjective level: I am talking about the perceiver that is trapped in this Body/life. Ego is the thing that distorts reality, making things up, drawing conclusion, having beliefs, judging, filtering reality in a way that's useful for survival, avoiding pain, and seeking pleasure. Those awakenings are not there NOW, but occur once in a while before they dissapear. Right now reality is thinner than compared to other days, but not even close to a full or even partial awakening. Right Now, I'm trying a little bit to get somewhere I am not. Which I know is futile, but trying not to try is harder than trying ^^ I try to accomplish an end to suffering and starting 60 years of bliss. I'm trying to avoid the suffering of daily life (and the mind). I don't know if that is going to lead me somewhere, but that's just where I am at right now. What can I do? I'm lost and trapped into this spiritual vicious circle.

@Preety_India The illusion is the ego making physical reality seem thick, I guess. Usually when I am "falling" into an awakening reality gets thinner and thinner until there is only love or nothingness. But maybe that's just me not being grounded, could be a side effect though and not an indication, I don't really know for sure. I simply never had an awakening with reality seeming as "dense".

@73809 I let go of it and then it comes back, but then it goes away and I want it. It is very counter intuitive haha. @Preety_India Do you mean that reality becomes thicker if you awaken? That is not the experience I have made. For me personally its more like everything outside of perception doesn't exist or seems to be in a quantum superposition (metaphorically). I talk about the "material" reality, physical stuff seems to have no more substance than any other object of perception.

Very bad life advice and very bad awakening advice. "Just torture yourself so much it becomes unbearable and your mind won't have a choice but to awaken" The mind is way trickier than that, it will look for every way out of suffering or you might just get lost into it. You know there are a lot of traumatized people who are technically enlightened (in the dark night of the soul), but suffer more as they could have possibly imagined.

@No Self I wish I was only identified with the seeker, I am identified with the entire ego haha. No matter what I do I cannot stop being persistent in seeking, even "calling of the search" or that kind of giving up is kind of a seeking. I'm going to continue the practices then I guess haha.

I contemplated: So basically a spiritual hypothesis for sexual selection is that love and beauty are the driving forces behind everything in sexual selection. Now I tried to convince myself that the point was to experience love, but I'm not really convinced by that. You could argue that it's all about survival, that Love and beauty aren't fundamental in that process, but just mere forces that make sure survival of the genes continues. So sexual selection with beauty, could be a bug and not a feature. It could be that beauty/symmetry is a sign of health, and that for the purpose to survive, one sex deceives the other by pretending to have more health, by having more symmetry, but not really more "health". The fact that some male birds as a mating ritual perform a dance, and the female bird obviously loves it, could be simply for survivals purpose and not for the beauty itself. Because being able to move a lot and being agile is surely very helpful for the survival of a bird. So I didn't find a good enough conclusion to prove to myself that love is the deepest drive for nature. What was there before the chicken or the egg? Do we need to love as a means to survive, or do we survive to be able to love? If we go "before" animals, the material world is in some sense the "evolution" of the planets. and one aspect of the force behind that movement of creation and destruction is "entropy". It's a mystery to me how love is the most fundamental thing there is in terms of metaphysics. I can however see/imagine everything through the lens of love. Does anybody know an answer that could satisfy spiral dynamics stage orange, green, yellow and turquoise? I'm experiencing a lot with love, because I just had an awakening about it, that's why also contemplate about it with a few lenses. I need to do this for my future love awakenings, so I'm more like writing to myself here, just wanted to let you know and maybe hear your thoughts about it.

I have 2 questions about observing objects (every percept/emotion/concept etc.) First, I feel like the state of equanimity where everything just flows is pretty rare and only occasionally lasts more than a few hours, when I am in this state of non-resistance I realise that it just happens and it is not the result of some kind of meditation or intention. However, when I am not in that state, I experiment with "identification vs suppression" of the objects. It seems like I cannot find the right balance when I notice that I either supress something or when I am identified with it. I just sometimes fall into it. Do you guys have any tips on how to bring yourself into equanimity and find the right balance? Second question, what is meta-equanimity? I intuitively think the biggest non-resistance there can be is not to resist the resistance, it seems a little bit counter productive because if that's the case you can just let equanimity out of the equation, and not train that at all. Or maybe I have to do both? Like alternate between consciously "trying" not to identify with objects and not supressing them, and afterwards just accept when it happens? For example: I have a pain in my shoulder, when I don't resist that it's okay, but when I do, I have thoughts about how it will get worse and worse and then I have some negative emotion associated to it." Should I cut the snake by it's head, practicing equanimity with the pain in the shoulder, or allow the snake do it's thing by leaving my resistance to the pain in my shoulder alone, making me resist the thoughts and resist the negative emotion that leads to suffering? I also regularly surrender to the deep suffering that occurs once a week, then it is so bad that I identify with it and just suffer, and allow it to "hurt" me. I'm not even sure this is doing more good than bad. I would love to hear your thoughts on this.

@tsuki However I just tried just to train equanimity with the pain in the shoulder, it's not just the pain that leads to thoughts that leads to emotion that leads to suffering, it's all of them together at once, and just focusing on the shoulder is not equanimity, it is avoiding the thoughts and emotions that arise while trying to be equanimous with the physical pain. So i believe that I need to divide and conquer the 3 objects correlated to that experience, so that I learn that there is no need to focus on the equanimity towards the pain, but I need to have equanimity towards the pain, the thoughts and the emotion, so that I don't even fall into that suffering loop because eventually there is nothing to escape from, not the direct pain, not the thoughts and not the emotions. I need to radically accept everything, because I notice that I am in a vicious circle while doing the practice, and real equanimity probably comes when I give up that vicious circle I can't control.

I don't believe that there is something left that can distinguish heaven and hell "after" death. However, during death you can experience "eternity", the "eternal now". I also have experienced this with suffering. Eternal now + suffering shot me into the nothingness. Strangely "after eternity" ,eternity ironically stops and time just happens again. So probably during your dying process you can be in the eternal now + suffering, which I believe is technically Hell, until you give up and the ego dies before your Body. In the nothingness I don't remember being bothered by the "eternal suffering" that preceded. It's just a belief, but I think nothingness transcends heaven and hell. at least the nothingness transcended heaven- and hell-awakenings I had. Test it out in life, you might not have to literally die for that, let yourself be absorbed into heaven until there is no heaven, an let yourself be absorbed in hell until there is no hell. If that's also the case after death, nobody really knows, however it seems strange to me that you can transcend heaven and hell during life, why would we be stuck in those mildly-awakened states after death?

Perfect, perfect, perfect. Thank you. That was the missing thought. I shouldn't burn down the boat before crossing the river. Holy shit I told 2 people recently that awakening would just lead you to realise that you should live your life like there was nothing to reach, because in fact it will just show you that there is nothing you can do. What I miss is that someone needs to go that road to be able to realise that there is nothing "to do". I need to take tell them that i take that back (and that they should never trust anything I say).

@How to be wise thank you, wanted to read all the enlightenments books first, I might want to read those emotion books first.

Sorry, I need to rant about something A part of me that was suppressed came up now, I'm not proud of it, but I hate the fact that most people feel superior in their so called knowledge of the "truth". I thought that I accepted that people cling to things they desperately believe to be true, but I just don't. I hate the "stupidity" of christians, jews and muslims most of all. Trying to debunk personal experience with Jesus-shit, believing what the catholic church has to say about something they have no fucking idea about, claiming the authority about understanding what jesus said etc. In some sense that makes me worse than them, because I have a bigger persuasion that I know part of some truth, multiple perspectives etc. I just base it on not-knowing and mystery. I cannot stop telling them in a more-or-less polite way that they are full of shit, people they trust are full of shit, and indoctrinating themselves into ridiculous ideologies that are not even the base of their own doctrine. I think I am not going to talk to religious or materialist people anymore about stuff I go through/experience, if they are not open minded. This drives me crazy and is toxic to me, if I am not grounded and hear about some "devil-misleading-me"-bullshit I might end up fighting a culture war against them. I think I am going to take a break from people who are not open minded, I never believed this could trigger me that much, but this is part of me. I somehow get angry about silly stuff now. Feel free to tell me your perspective on this.

@Someone here Yes? Do you believe I claim to be in jesus mode or something haha. The fact that I am/was trapped into this thinking is just my ego lashing out. What do you expect, I'm trying to allow to be as human as possible.

@tsuki Of course, blasphemy is worse than political incorrectness for blue. @Someone here I know what logic is, I know what metaphysics is and basic assumptions of religious people. You would never let me get away with circular reasoning and what the religion is not even circular it's back and forth between, jesus is truth and bible is word of god because jesus was and jesus is truth. Of course I'm filling my mind with bullshit, assumptions etc, and it's frustrating to recycle everything you believe to know after every insight, anticipating that you are going to fill it up with new/different bullshit. What I believe I try to do to here is to flush the bullshit away regularly to make space for new/better/more practical bullshit. Not to cling to the bullshit, and not proudly making the pile of shit bigger and bragging for having such a huge pile of bullshit in my mind. I hope you like my metaphor lol.

Hello guys, I'm back. What I wrote had some truth to it, but it was amplified by the anger and frustration that came up, Usually a few days after or before an awakening, some supressed parts of me come up and spice the entire space of awareness with some emotion. I believe that when that happens an emotional blockage just "explodes" and frees my Body from the "blocked energy". It's incredible how from one moment to another something just builds up when I allow it and don't suppress it. Of course as many of you pointed out, what I felt was pure ego. I believe that this might be some kind of emotional purification. And yes I am to some degree full of shit like "them". Seeing them believe weird illogical stuff makes me feel like I do the same, which my ego doesn't want to truly accept. Fortunately I also have 2-3 green friends who are open minded, I'm thankfull for that. Am I doing this right? I follow shinzen youngs and adyashantis advice on having 0 resistance and allowing everything to happen, that includes sadness/hate/anger/frustration etc. Afterwards I usually fall a sleep for an hour like a toddler who threw a tantrum. I'm patiently waiting for @Leo Gura s video on shadow work, to see if I enlighten my shadow correctly.

@Raptorsin7 This is absurd, I never trust those who turn phrases around weirdly, just to avoid using the word "I". Either they are deluded, want to prove they are enlightened, 24/7 or don't understand what language is. Also it is not practical, why bother. I however have no problem with explaining their non-dual experience like "there is this feeling arising the space of awareness" to describe how they perceive reality differently. But going to the bar and avoiding "I" like "A beer would be nice for my thirst" is just simply ridiculous. Some people who claim to be enlightened talk like that, no kidding.

@Tim Ho Well, you know how we all have a perspective on life. I started my journey out of despair, because life was ugly, painful etc. Life was a journey of avoiding suffering until you die, an hopefully nothing to bad will happen to you (again). But that is just one perspective on life, I recently had an awakening into the nothingness, multiple ego deaths, and the realisation that everything was love and perfect as it is, reality could not have been better designed, every sensation every thought, every emotion was just perfect, love etc. There is no worry anymore, because you know everything is love. Thats the biggest change of perspective possible on life for me. We already are in heaven. We just don't notice it all the time. Or we simply don't want to see it. However I didn't have a God awakening yet, I can't compare God with heaven.

I get it now, my Ego wants to avoid later suffering and wants to avoid losing control so everything can survive. Now I need to contemplate how I can make sure the ego can survive while being in heaven, not causing harm to me or everything my soul holds precious.

Yesterday I had a Heaven awakening for a few hours, everything was perfect, a love and peace I couldn't escape from. This isnt my first awakening, but definately the best so far. I didn't even meditate but I know it is a result from the neti neti practice from a book where I had a no self experience. I cannot even put into words how the experience was, while driving 2 hours I had multiple ego deaths merging with objects etc. It was so full of love that my ego couldn't even make me feel bad. Now I realised that "my reality" can have 2 perspectives. The depressed nihilistic perspective to avoid suffering and surviving or realising I'm in heaven. Now this is a 180 degree change in perspective of the world, so I have to adjust to it. Guess what my ego is telling me. "No this is dangerous, you can get trapped into heaven, what if it changes, this is too good you need to ground yourself the world is full of dangers, are you sure this isn't a mental health issue, what if you are bipolar and today is heaven - tomorrow is hell? What about your family? Are you okay with you feeling like you're in heaven while your parents suffer, is this fair? Don't forget that this isn't permanent. Oh no this isn't permanent, now make sure this doesn't go away, okay just check to see if you are still able to tap into ego death... Okay it works... But dont do this too much, who knows maybe you'll fall so deep into it that suddenly you have a panic attack and end up in the dark night. Why are you smoking so much nicotine today, are you sure you weren't drugged? What if this is something neurological and you are about to have a seizure? WHILE DRIVING!!!! Yesterday I realised there was nothing the ego could do, but it simultaneously wants to keep that state of being and wants to control. Now I strongly believe I have to shower the ego with love until it understands without it having to fight with itself. I just use equanimity practice and adyashantis true meditation methods. Do you guys have any post satori practice I can do to "keep the balance" or any advice? Buddhism says that the next step is to keep the state of no self 24/7, but I don't know if I am comfortable with doing this...

Heaven for me, life changing.

@Gesundheit Well, in clinical psychology, a mental issue is defined by the symptoms causing suffering or being in the way of having a normal life. Psychologists and Psychiatrist might want to treat you for DP/DR even if you are the most fulfilled person on earth, because they could find it strange or dangerous or deluded, but thats not always the case for people who have an awakening. You can rebuild a self with your mind or rebuild your identification with your Body. So basically not emptying objects but filling them with ego. If you feel bad about DP/DR, you can rebuild your identification with your Body, by not focussing of the raw input of bodily sensation but also imagining your legs while you focus on them. This is ego. However if you are not in danger of harming yourself or other people, and it doesnt cause suffering I dont see why you would do that. Love awakening will do it.

@Gesundheit Derealisation and Depersonalisation is the dark night of the soul. Dont say something is not enlightenment because it is in the DSM-V. There is no such thing as positive DP/DR, because that is an awakening. Believe me, my first awakening was fucking horrible, I went through the eternal now with incredible fear and existential suffering. Some people have panic attacks every time they get a taste of the source. That is the dark night/ DP/DR. If there is no fear, there is no dark night of the soul. Awakening without love feels weird, that can be considered as DP/DR in psychology, but that is simply because the love part is still missing.

@allislove I had some insight in what I want to do, I am studying psychology right now and have an ecommerce business, I am going to make an app/website/service that helps people to develop their empathy and love. I would "love" to bring people to realise heaven on earth. I also had a realisation a few days ago, that the most important thing someone who is deeply non-dual needs to be ethically correct is Empathy in order to not become a Zen devil. But also without spirituality there is a need for empathy. Probably going to do that, I already have a few ideas to implement on that project and I have enough money (to start) and I have enough time and I have enough knowledge. I just need to sit down and do it. Thank God my life is so comfortable.