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Needs are only of this world (although we can transcend them even whilst in this world - or the belief we are in this world still). Needs = lack and there is no lack when we truly know who we are and have undone all the beliefs that led to the belief of lack (separation). This is something that cannot be fully understood until you realise it though. Until then we will continue to have “needs” that cannot ever be fully met by anyone (even ourselves).

Byron Katie. She is love itself!

This Thomas Merton quote gives hints at it. With success like the people you mention have achieved means a lot of work where they can be left with very little time to contemplate what they are really here for. “If I had a message to my contemporaries it is surely this: Be anything you like, be madmen, drunks, and bastards of every shape and form, but at all costs avoid one thing: success . . . If you are too obsessed with success, you will forget to live. If you have learned only how to be a success, your life has probably been wasted.”. Thomas Merton, Love and Living That is why Jesus said "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God". It’s not so much about the money as the attachment to the success and also the time it takes. There are many different takes on “purpose”. There is also the ego’s purpose and God’s purpose which won’t be the same.

I can’t. It’s where my awakening journey has taken me, that death is not real which is why we are told by all enlightened people that learning to die before you die is the key to enlightenment. It’s of no benefit to anyone to end their life as they are only leaving their body. The ego remains until it dies which is the true “death”.

What an opportunity for you right now! I too was at the lowest low before I had my first awakening. Also with what I labelled a “terrible childhood” where I was sexually abused. I was thinking about suicide quite seriously even looking up ways to do it. I was 43yrs old. Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle also woke up whilst suicidal - Tolle at 29yrs and Katie at 43yrs. Theirs was instant enlightenment though. Their words and books have brought me out of another low this year and I share some of their words. “I discovered that when I believed my thoughts I suffered, but when I didn’t believe them I didn’t suffer and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional.” Byron Katie “Life isn’t as serious as the mind makes it out to be.” Eckhart Tolle To realize that you are not your thoughts is when you begin to awaken spiritually. Eckhart Tolle Death is not the end of suffering if we die suffering. At the end of the day it doesn’t matter if you end this life or not. You’ll continue to come back until you fully wake up. Which will happen. It’s just whether it happens in this life time or not. I am editing this to add an answer to your actual question and the answer being that there is no loving way to end your life. Love would see you asking for help and receiving it. Even screaming out “Please help me”. This is love, to yourself and others.

3 things come to mind reading your post. First: Do you want to be right or do you want peace? Because you can’t have both. Second: Is it true? Byron Katie’s “The work” leads us to 4 questions to help us change the beliefs that cause us to suffer. You can do this for when we believe someone is wrong and we are right and anything else. 1. Is it true? 2. Do you absolutely know that it’s true? 3. What do you feel and how do you act when you believe it’s true? 4. What would you be like without the thought that it is true? Then turn it around. This is where you put yourself into their shoes. So a belief may be “My mother didn’t love me” ... the turn around may be “I don’t love my mother” - which can happen when we start to build a story around how someone doesn’t like us. Third is also from Byron Katie: There are 3 types of business. Your business, other people’s business and God’s business. If you are in other people’s business or Gods then you are causing yourself unnecessary suffering and cannot change other people. We can only change ourselves (and because we are the other person - given we are all connected) then that’s where we find the power for change, growth and coming back to our true self - that we are pure love.

It would be similar to Jesus talking about forgiving 70 X 7. When you come to know who you truly are then there is no fear and no reason not to trust as you know that everyone has the same true nature. I think Byron Katie is a beautiful example of this. She talks about how when she woke up to reality at 43yrs of age (she had an instant enlightened experience) she lost all fear and only had love. In her book “A thousand names for joy” she talks about how she goes all over the world without fear as when you have no fear of death and you believe everyone is ultimately you then there is nothing to fear (she explains it better, don’t have my book on me to quote it fully!).

I just finished “The Four Agreements” which was a good read. I have these 3 all started and read a little at a time: ” The Tao of Pooh and the Te of Piglet: The principles of Taoism demonstrated by Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet” by Benjamin Hoff. ”Yoga and the Quest for the True Self” by Stephen Cope. ”A Thousand Names for Joy: Living in Harmony with the Way Things Are” by Byron Katie and Stephen Mitchell. I’m also about to start a course in miracles this week so that’ll be my main focus for the next year.

The two I know who have had instant enlightenment during their lifetime at a time of intense suffering (being suicidal) are Eckhart Tolle (Power of Now and A New Earth) and Byron Katie - her original book is “Loving what is” but I also loved “A Mind at home with itself” and “1000 names for joy” which is her own explanation of the Tao Te Ching. Both Eckhart and Katie have heaps of videos on you tube and Katie’s self enquiry work is free on her website. I would love to know any more

I start ACIM next week, am very excited, although I feel I’ve already started as the concepts are becoming life to me as I drove past my old church today (we don’t attend church anymore and haven’t for 9yrs or so) I started going through lists of names of all the people I remembered forgiving them and forgiving myself. I usually can’t drive past the church with judgement but it wasn’t present today. Only love. The baby in my photo is my granddaughter who’s now 3. She is a twin so I have two of these precious beings as forgiveness lessons and to learn unconditional love.

Marianne Williamson’s book “A Return to a Love”. Also Byron Katie has heaps of you tube clips doing “the work”. I find her feminine energy strong, she’s beautiful and enlightened.

I’ve just finished reading Gary Renard’s trilogy “The disappearance of the universe”, “Your Immortal Reality and “Love has forgotten no one”. Then tonight I finished Marianne Williamson’s book “A return to love”. I’ve heard many have walked away from the course due to it not making sense and these books can help prepare you for the course. I’ve ordered the course for my husband and I so still waiting for it to arrive. The books to prepare were amazing though and I’m blown away by it all already! I’ve seen in some of ACIM Facebook groups it being advised to read the teachers manual first as it uses plain language and can help set a foundation for the text and the workbook. So we will probably start that way.

@Nahm I found another today - “I started a joke” by Bee Gees. Looked at from a ACIM perspective (and many others I’m sure). It’s perfect! All these 60/70’s drug trips rock bands took really gave them inspiration for truth!

@erik8lrl Beautiful

You will have already died plenty of times not being enlightened in all the past lives you’ve lived (simultaneously). There will come a life where you will be enlightened and then you will not return. You can get there fast or slow depending on choices but you’ll always get there. I have never taken any “illegal” drugs or psychedelics and this has come to me in this lifetime without it through lots of reading. I know it’s just because of the work I’ve done in prior lifetimes (possibly with psychedelics who know). Thats my take on where I am at right now.

It didn’t, it’s only imagined. It occurred due to God’s son (or whatever you want to call the source, none of our names will ever suffice) had a mad thought “what if I was separate”. That created the ego and the imagined dream that we were separate and the “Big Bang” into the illusion of the dream. We will wake up when we fully realise it never happened and we were never separate, always one and whole.

This is beautiful. I haven’t really done any meditation. I’ve come to the realisations you have through reading books. I find it so refreshing to read it happening just through meditation that confirms the Holy Spirit/true self/source or whatever name we personally give it is within in and will speak the truth if we ask. The non judgement stuff is huge. I lived 45yrs until this year before I experienced how it is not to judge. I too was a master at judging but now it’s disappeared. Such bliss and peace.

A. I would have no idea how many books I’ve read over the past 5yrs. Sometimes I can go months even a year without reading anything and then I can read 10 books within a matter of months. This year I’ve read sound 30 (probably the most books I’ve read in a year though). B. My top 3 are all from this year which has been my fastest growth year (thanks Covid!). 1. A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle This is where I started to fully understand my thoughts were not my own, the role of the ego and how only the present exists. 2. A mind at home in itself by Byron Katie (her version of the Diamond Sutra) This Book took me to the next level of questioning if anything was true really and seeing that every person/situation was there as a reflection and a chance to challenge beliefs that were causing my suffering. 3. The disappearance of the universe by Gary Renard. This book blew me away. I have a background in evangelical Christianity so the Christian language was perfect for me. This is where I realised it’s all not real. It’s a dream in the mind we created. We are dreaming whilst still with God and in the dream we believe we are separate and individual. We will wake up and this world will disappear when we forgive ourselves for the belief and remember there is only one and it’s pure love. Practising perfect forgiveness (as taught in a course of miracles) helps us to get back there (but this is not the only way - all ways lead back, some faster and some slower).

Yes I would say The Shack was the start for me actually. It took me towards Wayne Jacobsen’s books - “So you don’t want to go to church anymore” and “He loves me.” Still very “Christian” but the steps out of organised religion and into the fullness of unconditional love.

Richard Rohr was my first eye opener. He’s a catholic mystic Franciscan friar. My fave books were “Immortal Diamond” and “Falling Upward”. He believes all roads lead to God and quotes from lots of eastern religions. I’ve just read Gary Renard’s books starting with the Disappearance of the Universe (leads to a course in miracles which is my next read). It’s a big jump though for people just coming out of traditional Christianity. I had read Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie and studied a little bit of Taoism before I read DU which helped me be open and ready for the truths in it.

I was raised evangelical Christian (Baptist then Church of Christ). The thing that took me out of stage blue strangely is I went to bible college (it was actually a Pentecostal bible college). Weirdly (I’m sure this is not everyone’s experience) but studying the bible made me realise things were not black and white and a whole lot of grey came into my world. I still stayed in the church until 10-15yrs later around 37yrs when I read a book called “So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore: An Unexpected Journey” by Wayne Jacobsen. This is when I left the church and went on another 8yr journey which took me through lots of religions and philosophies realising all roads can lead home. The last 6mths I’ve had bam, bam, bam moments which accelerated my journey to a point where I fully understand what I’ve known all along. That we were never separate and always whole, I just didn’t remember or believe it. I missed the last two questions. Have you ever been one of those angry theists in your lifetime ? Yes I was. I was pro-life, homophobic and judged anyone who fell slightly short of my standards whilst pretending to “love the sinner but hate the sin”. If you met yourself from the past when you were at stage blue, what would you say or ask your self? I probably wouldn’t say anything. Probably smile and wave just like the penguins in Madagascar fully knowing they’ll get there in the end. Practice love and non judgement as I know they are me and we were never separate.

My husband is a psychologist and I’ve seen many psychologists for myself and it’s been hit and miss. I find most don’t have a clue and I have known more than them for where I’m at (I can now see though each and every one offered me truths I could not see at the time as I wasn’t ready). You’ve been given lots of tips and they all lead the same way, some faster and some slower. My extra tip is to look into EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) and consider a therapist who offers it. It can get to the beliefs you have that are causing suffering much quicker than some other therapies which can take the longer way around. My husband practised for many years before he knew about it and now he said he can deal with lifelong issues within a few sessions of what he may have taken years.

I’ve really enjoyed this thread and found this forum through searching for “songs about enlightenment”. I decided to join as I decided to google after listening to Lifehouse’s “No name face” album today after many years and realising how enlightened it is. Jason Wade who wrote most of the songs (when he was 15 - obviously has been here before many times) said this about writing the hit song “Hanging by a moment”: ”Writing that song was a stream-of-consciousness where the words were there, the melodies were there, the bridge was there and it was complete in 10 minutes,” he said. “I was like an antenna pulling something down that was already out there. It’s a really crazy feeling.” There are so many great songs on the album with my favourite being Everything, Breathing and Hanging by a Moment. Cling and clatter is good too. He mentions multiple times that it feels like he’s in a dream, in an in between place that the worlds not real.