vizual

If your idealism prevents you from seeing reality and being in the now, it's pure ego, simple. It's funny because this reminds me. I only eat vegan and I sense that a lot of vegans I meet don't eat vegans out of love for the animals and the environment, but I have the sense they do it because they secretly hate and loathe humanity. There's a lot of anger in them, you can see these people in the internetz also, lol. All your ideals and ideas are worthless if they just live as delusions in your head. And, on the other side of the coin, it can be plain dangerous if you try to bend reality just to fit your own delusional ideas(see religious terrorists). The best thing you can do is to strife to live truthfully with love in your heart, reality has a tendency to figure out where to go on its own. You can start by looking where your ideals come from, ideals are always tainted by some subjective experience in the past. By trying to enforce these ideals in your life you are only trying to run away from pain you have experienced one day in your life. The same goes for perfectionism, people become perfectionists because they were hurt in the past because they did not live up to someone else's standards. If you want to fix these things you gotta embrace the pain. And it's not that hard really when you see through the illusion. Pain is perfectly neutral, it's all the thoughts and images that go with it that can make it sufferable.

Realizing that you have zero control over yourself and reality, so you can let go and be free of all neurosis.

@khalifa It's not about states or belief systems, it's about not resisting reality anymore. Full acceptance, and there is no one inside of us that can 'do' that. It's a matter of not doing. The patterns inside of your brain can do just fine without a 'you' inside there to micromanage everything. The 'you' is more like a fifth wheel on a car. Have you watched Leo's enlightenment video's? I think he explains quite well what enlightenment is, and what it isn't. I think you have the wrong impression. It's not about being in some unshakable zen-like trance all the time, it's more subtle than that.

@Salaam You accuse me of being ignorant, yet you state all kinds of ignorant claims about me and my understanding and experience with enlightenment. I don't mind, but surely you can find the irony in that. The thing I want to say about it is that all this stuff you talk about stil appears in one consciousness, it's not "keyboard jockey shit". You can study all the aspects that appear within this consciousness, but that doesn't make them necessarily true. Yes, even an enlightened one will experience inner resistance even when he is enlightened, but the fact that he doesn't mean words like "somatosensory system" doesn't mean he is ignorant.He just chooses to communicate his ideas about enlightenment from a different perspective than you do. If anything, you seem to be the one incapable of recognizing nuance, different things resonate with different people and no single one thing is ultimately true.

Good luck brother. Defeating your invisible ghosts is great fun if you are willing to commit to it. It can be a pain in the beginning since the ghosts have been there for so long but it's all worth it when you look them straight in the eye, guaranteed.

What do you mean by they have their own entity? Nothing is its own entity, there are no clear, defined lines in this reality. And enlightenment is not a belief, it's seeing reality for what it is beyond all the thoughts and beliefs. An ego can not be enlightened because what is an ego? Just a conglomeration of distorted beliefs. Of course these beliefs appear inside of the true reality, but the beliefs themselves don't reflect the truth. It's also not about thinking outside of the box, there only is the box, there is no way to think outside of it. All thoughts appear inside the box of awareness, that's why you can't take thoughts to be true because thoughts only reflect a distorted perspective on some of reality. An enlightened being will not claim he has all the answers, he only knows in his heart that there are no answers. At least, the answers people are looking for can not be accurately communicated through the limited lens of language and symbols. The only truth may or may not be being/consciousness/god, and the only way to find out is to experience that for yourself and not take it on as a belief system.

Can we please stop about this talk of 'high' consciousness. High consciousness is the most ordinary thing there is, the word high implies(at least to me) that it is some superhuman state which only a few elite yogi's can attain. Yes, most people are totally hypnotized by their own delusional thinking. But let's not make enlightenment in this godlike state. It's just what is, no judgments, nowhere to go to, nowhere to go from. No value judgments, everything is just as it is, and it is all perfect. It's only difficult if you make it difficult yourself. And having all these terms, judgements and values of what enlightenment may or may not be is not helping. To answer your question, it is the ego that is asking if it is making progress, and the ego is never going to be enlightened. The ego wants to think that it is making progress, so that it doesn't have to give itself up. There is no progress to be made, only ego thinks in terms of progress. Consciousness does not know progress, it just knows what is.

Grow up and make the effort to give your dad a hug everyday. He's your dad, you only get one in this lifetime. Sure he may be a dick, just as you are probably a snotty brat just as much but you are still related. Make the best out of it. Even if you don't like him, you can still respect him, even if his actions are misguided. No one is perfect, everyone struggles in their lives. If you should have one persons back in this world, it's your family members backs. A better world begins with you, and judging your dad as toxic is not helping. I'm pretty sure underneath all that resentment there is still some love there. Even if you have to go years back to find it. Once, there was love for your father, and your father loved you. Find your way back to that love man, life is too short to stay hung up on this petty bullshit.

Yes the world should only speak one language, what's the use of multiple languages when we can just avoid all the hassle of translators, studying languages and such. Let's also ban art, art is just as useless as having multiple languages. What about history? Useless. Literature? Pretty useless. Philosophy? Yup, useless. Y'know, if we cut out all the things in the world a lot of people find 'useless', there isn't much use to go on living. Character is the thing that makes this world worth living in. The diversity of all the personal expressions give color and meaning to our lives. Seriously, Irish is fucking cool. When you grow up you'll learn that pure pragmatism has its place in the world, but it doesn't provide that true intrinsic value. Feel free to disagree

Very true, those few days I couldn't log in into this forum I almost had an existential crisis which led to a near dissolvement of my ego. Thank goodness the forum started working again or else my ego surely would have been a goner.

The need for lists is also a big trap of the ego

I personally believe that it is the intent if the things you say, not if the content of those things are factually correct. For instance, when flirting with someone you like you can tell all kinds of teasing little lies, that does not make you a bad person. Or let's say, that you lie because you are honestly trying to protect someone from possible harm. In both instances, these lies can actually come from a place of truth. I believe that you can tell a lie from a place of truth but these instances are not going to arise very frequently. If I have to interpret the OP. He says that he has to lie to get along with people. Let me say this, when you in some way present yourself differently than you really are people are probably not going to like you for who you really are. Even if you can keep up the charade for a long time, people are going to find out eventually and think you a fraud. And even if you do manage to keep it up, people are always going to have that slight little feeling that something is off with you which prevents you from building authentic relationships with people. This does not make them happy, and this definitely does not make you happy.

Forget about the girl for a moment, exactly like you said, you need to overcome your shyness. It's not about 'defeating' shyness because shyness is not really a real thing, it's a learned and irrational habit cooked in the brain. I know it can feel very painful and awkward when you can't express yourself around people you really like. The solution is that you need to give mindfulness to that blocking feeling. The automatic response of the ego is to run away from that uncomfortable feeling, but if you keep running away it will persist. You have to 'shine light' on that feeling as to say. A good exercise is to visualize social situations where you feel anxiousness and blockages and stay with that feeling, watch it and let the feeling be. Don't resist the feeling because the feeling is not bad per se, it's your interpretation that makes it bad. Your lizard brain thinks it's protecting you, but that part of the brain can only look at things at a very short term. It does not always look at for your best interests on the long run. So there aren't any shortcuts one way or another. You have to look the uncomfortable feelings straight in the eye, and realize that blockages in your brain are just smokescreens if you truly let them be for what they are without trying to warp them in some way or run away from them.

Stephen Covey calls it 'sharpening the saw' in his books. Basically, if you do focus too much on a thing you are going to get burned out on it. It's important to have a passion and a goal to work toward, but if you can't let it go for a while you are actually holding yourself back. Because, in the long run you are going to resent doing those activities, you are going to resent the activities related to personal development. Just like in a relationship, if you are 24 hours a day around your partner you are probably going to end up resenting each other, or at least the passionate love is going to die down. There always needs to be a bit of breathing space to keep that sense of wonder going. If you want to reach your goals, yes, there is always going to be the gritty work with maybe some grinding labour involved. But on the other hand, to truly reach its potential there also has to be this love and passion involved if you truly want to transcend averageness. If you want to get the most out of your personal development there also has to come a time where you can let go and disengage, because you know you will get back to it later. Only if you don't trust yourself you have to force yourself, because you might think that you will be too lazy or whatever to later go back to it. If you indeed feel a certain laziness in your mental space that's actually a good time to put some mindfulness to these feelings.

I think you are putting too much pressure on yourself and maybe thinking this thing a bit too seriously. It's very tempting to the mind to take this whole contemplation thing very seriously and invest a lot of concentration and effort in to it. You probably want to do it 'right' or not at all. But contemplation should be more approached as an art, than a science. Just go to where you curiosity leads you. Write down stupid questions about who you are, why you are where you are at in life, who are people in general, or whatever sparks your imagination. It's all about putting your own reality into a perspective of truth. Your own perspective is unique to you so every self inquiry is different, there is no right answer or approach. It's about the intent of getting to the truth of existence. Now this sounds very serious, but it's not, just try to have fun with it.

You need to bring awareness to the thing you are focussing on, and the thing that is doing the focussing. Both these objects of awareness do not exist in a vacuum, even if they do seem to do so when the focussing has already begun. Both the object and the subject exist within awareness. You can't 'try' to become aware of these objects. You can only 'soften the lens' so that the whole picture can come into focus.

You can't be more aware, you can only be less unaware. Becoming more aware implies there is some effort to be made. Notice that when you start to become sleepy and the awareness turns inside the mind, you are blocking out certain parts of the external experience. If you become sleepy, see the sleepiness as a part of the whole experience. It's not that when you become sleepy you become a separate entity, sleepiness still arises inside effortless awareness. If the sleepiness arises, let it come and watch it as the part of the whole. Trying to fight it with thought will not get you any further. Don't go into a meditation session with a certain goal or mindset. Rather, let everything unfold as it arises, that's the only goal. Zero interference by 'you'. Even if thought arises, let it go by as breezy wind. Focussing on breath and body can serve as a pathway to a higher awareness. But it's not the body and breath per se that will make it happen. It's more that the body and breath are more in tune with things that just 'be'.

Every person who is not enlightened is religious in a way. Enlightenment means the letting go of all attachments to beliefs that are hold. An organized religion is very clear in their beliefs, but even as you define yourself as an 'atheist' or an 'agnost' who does not belief in particularly anything, you have just as much beliefs as the religious person. It's just more subtle because your beliefs are more disguised as they are probably more in tune with the part of society you attach your identity to. A part of society which deems itself as non-religious. So, at the end of the day. It doesn't matter which dogma you attach yourself to, no dogma is closer(or farther away) to truth than any other dogma.

It's not about your genetics, your past experiences, present experiences, your 'depression', your 'balls', limiting beliefs, your self worth, your self acceptance, your attitude, your thoughts nor your insecurities. Do you see how many value judgments and concepts you are using in that short chapter of text you wrote? These judgments are stories that probably go though your mind every day, but they are only stories, concepts and fictions. Yes, when you are identified with them they sound real, they sound if these thoughts make up who you are. These thoughts even get validated by your external world, this results in a downward spiral. Have you noticed this? When your thoughts became more negative, your outer world became more negative as well. When you attach to the thoughts of low value, people will give you the feedback that you are low value. And the dangerous thing is, these thoughts can seem VERY real when they gain momentum in life. Your best chance to get out of this is to gain awareness. These thoughts are not yours, your thoughts do not make up who you are, you are not your thoughts. Meditate, and watch the thoughts. Not a single one of your thoughts are true, they are just one part of the background. When you can align yourself with the present awareness in stead of these thoughts, your life can change into a positive life in an instant. But don't go looking to keep running away from these thoughts, you gotta look through them. Listen to me, don't indulge yourself in all these stories you have made up about yourself. They are all illusions. Your mind will probably say something like" Yes, but you just don't understand my situation.... my situation IS real...". But is it? That's what the ego does, it always tries to keep itself in al ittle, defined box. But the box will always bring problems in the long run, the box is not real though.

I think the core point of the lifestyle minimalism is that there is enough room to breath in your life for contemplation, peace and awareness. The point is not to throw everything out of your life for the sake of it, it's not about becoming a social recluse. It's about becoming less dependent on the social programming and habits and living more true to your core values without external distractions which bring suffering in the long run of your life. Having a rich social life does not necessarily interfere with living a contemplative, peaceful and conscious life. In fact, you can bring these qualities in your relationships and they wil bring great benefit to both sides of the relationships. I think an important thing to keep in mind that becoming more social is not only about you, there is a bigger picture present.

Just came here to give respect to the best comedian of all time, the one and only Bill Hicks. Shame on you OP for not mentioning his name

Ask yourself this. Who am I when I can't use language, images, symbols or feelings to answer the question?

Ever tried exercising with a friend? You know, something like an accountability buddy, I know it sounds cliche but it works. You can motivate each other and it keeps thing fresh. You have to have someone you can rely on though The topic title is funny because you will never be able to develop love for something. Because when you try to develop something it's the ego's motive that wants to get something out of it. Love only comes from the act of doing it, never from the potential results it may yield. So try to do things that make the process as joyful as possible. Don't try to constantly hammer yourself in doing thing just to get the results. That may yield short term results, but in the long run it's never sustainable.

I'll let you know my thoughts on your questions 1. Enlightenment isn't really a state. It's the true being which has always been there, even when you are wrapped in your ego the most, the pure consciousness is still there looming in the background. But yes, one can be aligned with pure being while being awake and asleep all times. 2. No one should seek that state per se. But it's the end of all suffering and all, for most people there comes a time in their lives they are tired of the same loop of suffering/indulging over and over again. And it makes life so much more enjoyable being one with 'being' that there isn't really a reason not to become 'enlightened'. I think you are confusing thinking with ego. If you're enlightened does not mean you can't think anymore, yes it's our pragmatic use of symbols that differentiate us with wild animals, but a state of no mind does not mean there can't be any thoughts. It's just that the 'voice' is not your voice anymore. Thoughts just become thoughts, like the car you drive in is the car you drive in. You are not your car. And having an ego is not necessarily a bad thing, nothing is bad in the eyes of truth. It's just that being heavily attached to ego has the side effect of suffering, there's no escaping it. 3. When one becomes enlightened there isn't a 'you' anymore that wants anything. 'You' become nothingness/awareness/consciousness who is one the background being everything that comes into the awareness. That does not mean that the character you currently identify yourself as becomes a hermit that meditates all day in a cave. It just means that you release total control of the character and let it do what it is supposed to do. Whatever the outcome. there will be happiness guaranteed. Maybe the character becomes a successful businessman/yogi/artist/garbageman, it's not up for anyone to decide on this plane of reality. Really, there is no ultimate truth to 'Life purpose'. The purpose of life is just living it and trying to wrap that in one single purpose diminishes the exploratory and spontaneous nature of life. Life should be a constant flow of adventure, peace, love, discovery etc. all wrapped into one. But when you try to define life in a purpose, suffering and unhappiness will eventually ensue. 4. Why does it end? You probably haven't made the realization yet, it's not yet complete. Keep looking, you'll get it.

So what is in control you ask? The same thing that makes the world spin, the rivers flow, the ants march and the clouds float in the sky. Who or what is that? you tell me Identify 'your' awareness with thought, and the thoughts will go rampant. Identify awareness with the totality of being, and you will know peace and harmony with existence. Saying you are your thoughts is like a log saying how good of a swimmer he is when he's floating down a river stream. Sure, the log can go fast and all, but is he really doing the swimming?