Jay Ray

@martins name I love this. Thank you for sharing this.

@Bodhitree Awesome. I really want to focus on one thing like leo's life purpose course says but my OCD gets in the way. I constantly doubt if I made the right choice. I want to find that one thing but I constantly question "Why did chose X in the first place why not Y or Z??? What is the point of doing X?"

@Tim Ho That is a great point. I bought Leos life purpose course and have finished about half of it so far. I know that having a live purpose will help wonders but "decision paralysis" keeps me down. The amount of decisions and questioning "are you sure that is your life purpose? are you 100% sure." keeps on coming up. I know that helping others in some way is one part of that purpose. Spirituality and meditation too are a huge part of it. Art, creativity and communications are also. I will need to think more about it. thank you

@SirVladimir @Tim R thank you!

I have become aware that I have a spiritual ego, one that comes out to claim everything as "mine" or "my great ideas". Some days, I feel this feeling of genuine presence and I feel close to having less of an ego, I feel more connected with everything that I see. This feeling is a very good feeling. However, many days I catch myself doing this sneaky little trick. I will be contemplating and possibly have some kind of insight or get an analogy to comprehend some kind of truth and then a little voice will come in my mind and say something like "wow, you are so smart how could you have come up with such a great analogy?" this voice interviews me like I am an accomplished celebrity and my ego goes "well, I generally think more deeply then the average joe about spiritual stuff." or "well I just cant stop thinking so that is something that I have that others (less spiritual people) don't have." this fake interviewer in my mind praises "me" and wants to know "how did I get to this super spiritual state?" and thanks me for "my (future) contribution to all of man kind" .... maybe they will make a statue of me in my honor someday... maybe I will be the next buddha or Eckart Tolle .... When this happens, I notice something, my state of happiness and peace goes down dramatically, I feel a little knot in my solar plexus area and my emotional state goes to a place that I would call "boredom+" it feels slightly better than boredom. Then from this emotion, I realize that I have been bragging in my mind about "how spiritual I am or will become in the future" and this feeling sometimes has a lot of momentum and can be hard to stop if it gets going. Even when I notice it the "bragging train has left the station" and getting back to the peace I had when I wasn't doing this feels hard. when I become aware of this voice I then think "oh wow! I have been bragging and boosted my spiritual ego for 20 minutes and now I feel pretty bad". I want to get back to the state of humble awareness and peace that I had when I wasn't not bragging to an imaginary interviewer on how "spiritual I am". During this state there also seems to be a feeling of lack and that "I need to do something or BE SOMEBODY great in order to be a good person or get good karma or something". I sometimes feel like I am not enough and that time is running out for me to "do great things". It tells me that "If I don't teach other about spiritually quickly then something bad will happen." which I know is ego BS but I am wondering what I should do going forward. I am becoming aware of this part of my ego and I want it to stop because it lowers my emotional state to boredom+. I sometimes feel like there are moments when I feel like I am lesser than others and that I have made unforgivable mistakes in my life and that I am worthless because of that, my ego reminds me of this and it seems like it "needs these bragging fantasies to feel better to feel like a SOMEBODY" but it just makes me feel worse. I sometimes feel like failure. I feel bored and unsatisfied and I want to transcend this. I want to be free of this voice and feel worthy. This egoic voice says "once you do something great, then you will be worthy of love." I am not sure what to do next. Any thoughts?

aha, I know X for sure! maybe that is true maybe it isnt. but wait I KNOW X to be true....maybe that is the case, maybe it is not the case. I exist, that is true.... maybe that is true maybe it is not. ALL certainty can melt like wax and then harden like wax and then melt again..... or maybe not...or maybe...or maybe not... every single thought you can add "maybe, maybe not" this exercise may or may not melt the ego like wax.

Here is a philosophical question that has been on my mind recently. Is dying dangerous? when someone is afraid of any kind of danger, then they are comparing it to death as the ultimate "danger" but if we really think about this from multiple perspectives then it starts to fall apart. "OMG, you don't want to walk down that dark alley at night that is so dangerous!" well what could happen, nothing bad could happen, you could get mugged you get stabled or you could be murdered or kidnaped. BUT is dying dangerous? If dying is safe then really what is dangerous then? If I will be reincarnated for eternity then is dying dangerous or is it safe? if this life is all that I have is death dangerous or is it safe? if there is a stage blue style afterlife is dying safe or is it dangerous? just a philosophical question to ponder, no right or wrong answers what do you think?

@PepperBlossoms I think in a few different ways. level One the lowest level of though, I have obvious childlike declarations like "oh that is a tree, look there is a bird. look there is a blue car". this level of thought is a simplistic "this is, that is he does they do" kind of thinking which goes unnoticed most of the time because it is less helpful but from this state comes more complex though patterns and ideas. level two is like comparing and contrasting these observation with cultural and moral judgements without deep realization on the flimsy nature of them . "Hey that is a tree and that is mundane and boring. Man I want to get a sportscar right now because with that I could be somebody and people would like me". this is kind of like the egoic though patterns that pops in my mind sometimes. level three is a deeper awareness of these thoughts "Hey I just had a moral judgment that said I need a sports car in order to be whole which doesn't make logic sense if extrapolated to the past when people didn't have sports cars and they were probably fine and dandy without them." "oh look there is a very vague picture in my minds eye of a character who looks like me but has some differences in a sports car with a big smile and then another thought of that same man without one and looking really sad. This mental character is not me and if I really wanted to I could changed this picture and add elements to it like a video game and change my emotional state because of it. I now see this mental image of a man happy and poor without a nice car or looking happy. I can control my ideas of " I have found that going back to level one is a great meditative place and level three is also great. level 2 causes all kinds of trouble.

@Chimera I personal have explored this a lot myself. It is possible to meditate on your private parts and have a very powerful orgasm without any touch at all. I have experienced a state of meditative orgasms at least 15-20 times and they are amazing. So much more powerful and longer than regular ones. though I think I may be addicted to them.

@Striving for more If you have a fantasy about wanting to engaging in stage red behavior maybe you should look at the characters who you want to fight with. I would assume that these imaginary characters serve a few possible different functions. they are simply target practice so that your ego can practice surviving. This is not good or bad. It is just a survival instinct that your mind create in your head with your voice to make you practice for battle which in the past was a useful for evolution. Your lower mind "jedi mind tricks" you into thinking that "you" created this though but in realty it is just buttons in your mind imagine that your survival insights are Jedi mind tricking you into thinking that you want to fight and be strong and when then when someone asks you about it you said "that's nonsense I chose to do that thought" another thing it could be would be is that these mental enemies show a piecee of you that your have suppressed. if you want to kill a bully figure then you hate your own part of yourself that is helpless. just some thing to think about.

I had a realization of a meditation technique that can reduce your fear of the future. sit quietly and focus on each breath. Try to breathe and inhale not in a cyclic normal pattern but only inhale when you feel like you need to. It can be arrhythmic and random. Think of each inhale as a gift from God. A tiny hit of life that you need to live. If you feel like you don't need air this second wait a few seconds to breathe. Don't try and force a lack of air but take only what you need from the air and no more. now, think about this if you are experiencing fear of the future. right now as you are breathing every future moment that could happen requires that you take that breath. If you don't breathe for 10 minutes then you are dead... that simple... Your future moments that your ego is afraid of are all resting upon the act of breathing. Remember, 10 minutes without an inhale and that future fear is no more. wiped out of the face of earth. think about all of the thing that you fear that may happen in the distant or near future. relationships breaking loved ones dying the world ending not "being good enough" not passing your classes wasting your time wasting money accidentally hurting other peoples feelings anything else that could go wrong Remember.... when you exhale that all you have is at most 10 minutes and no more. All of these fears of the future take a very long time to witness and unless you take the breath that you need you wont be able to experience them. Hopefully, this should bring your fears of the distant future to be at most 10 minutes away and will hopefully create a sense of presents and humility that the universe lets you take this breath now and without it your college exam grades or relationships don't matter. Your distant future requires that you take this inhale in this present moment or else it wont happen at all. hopefully this helps

@seeking_brilliance awesome, thank you so much!

Wow this is powerful to read. it reminds me of the weird distorted childhood logic that I had when I was like 4 years old. a few months ago during meditation I had that same experience when my inner monolog said "I will never think that spit is beautiful". then a few days later I tried looking at my on spit in the mirror and it looked cool, or alien and mysteriously beautiful and I was shocked that my own spit could look the way it did only buy testing that idea that "it is disgusting" when it is only the cultural idea that it is gross. Maybe an authority figure says that that "this body process is shameful" and it is the shame that causes the suffering. I can almost picture this cheese trip thing in my own mind right now and I want you to know that you are not alone. I have without any substances at all had many many times in my life where I have had distorted weird thoughts and they can be very useful if they are not looked at as "wierd" or "something to be suppressed"