Preetom

A fixed sleeping, eating, bathing, cleaning routine and schedule. After that, developing block time/hourly 'work' routine.

For the sake of brainstorming ideas, how about taking a spiral approach to break free the rut...seeing what seems to resonate the most. A basic overview like this. Stage purple: joining a cult and becoming a devoted fanatic. As one gives up one's life wholeheartedly to the tribe, his own problems eventually evaporate away. Stage Red: setting up a goal and going all the way on impulse, not regarding conventional logic and knowledge. Stage blue: making a set of values and principles. Then taking them as absolute truth and following them regardless of the outcome or circumstance. A stoic life where exercising the values and virtues is reward in itself. Stage orange: "the only obstacle between you and your goal is your excuses and stories"--believing in these alpha mantras and go for the goal. Basically constantly shame, guilt, outcompete yourself...depending on all the negative(inauthentic) and external motivations. Stage green: relax the ideas about material results. The measuring stick becomes how soft, loving and accepting one becomes to oneself and those around him. Stage yellow: thoroughly educating oneself about himself...making calculated 5, 10, 15, 20 years plan by regarding oneself as a systemic project..then slowly implementing that plan. Stage turquoise: leave everything and doing 1-2 years of constant self inquiry until Enlightenment happens and the next chapter gets revealed on its own.

Sounds like the classic perfectionism trap. The visions and idols are so lofty and fantastical that it is impossible to start small and holding that patience for long time without sidestepping. This is another downside of too much 'knowledge' and having things 'figured out' in one's mind right from the start. What is there left worth pursuing? Wish you good luck brother

Yes that's how it is designed so that we preciously get sick and tired of it and wake the fuck up to see that none of this sham has anything to do with us. It's to prevent us from preventing from nesting and making a home in this temporary playground. Developing this systematic chronic dis-satisfaction for the mundane reality that everyone else seems to conform to in a gullible manner, is one of the recurring and pre-requisites for a true spiritual search to begin most of the time.

''Give your attention to the experience of seeing rather than to the object seen and you will find yourself everywhere.'' ''The greatest discovery in life is to discover that our essential nature does not share the limits nor the destiny of the body and mind.'' ''Looking for happiness in the body, mind or world is like looking for the screen in a movie. The screen doesn't appear in the movie, and yet, at the same time, all that is seen in the movie is the screen. In the same way that the screen 'hides' in plain view, so happiness 'hides' in all experience.'' ''To invest one’s identity and security in something that appears, moves, changes and disappears is the cause of unhappiness.'' ''Total openness, pure sensitivity, unconditional allowing: this is not something you, as a person, can do; it is what you, as pure Awareness, are.'' ''The separate self is not an entity; it is an activity: the activity of thinking and feeling that our essential nature of pure Awareness shares the limits and the destiny of the body and mind.'' ''All experience is illuminated, or made knowable, by the light of pure Knowing. This Knowing pervades all thoughts, feelings, sensations and perceptions, irrespective of their particular characteristics. We are this transparent, unchanging Knowing.'' -Rupert Spira

''Why don't you be you(in the mail box), and I be me(on the other side of the screen)''

this is spot on. Everything was unnatural..until it became the norm

See it for yourself Let being reveal itself whatever it wants to show you. The using of higher cognitive functions like conceptualizing and fictitious additive reality building is not the problem in itself, it's the belief and conviction we put into them and our regard for them as TRUTH without investigation; That sure backfires on us. Birds chirp, dogs bark etc in order to express and communicate between themselves or between them and their surrounding. Wouldn't it be a tremendous hassle for dogs if they had the 'higher capabilities' for believing and holding on to every single of their 'woofs'? Then humans would probably have a serious rival when it comes to neurosis haha...

Exactly! If you doubt it, that's a legitimate doubt. In this sense, you can't be sure of any perception or information. If you had 8 senses instead of 5, you might experience a completely different appearance of this Universe. Similarly, it would be the same case if you had 3 senses instead of 5. We can't never be sure whats really 'out there'. But does the knowledge I AM AWARE come from people's words? Can any thing invalidate that? So to answer your question, yes the appearance and human constructs might be hoax, 'spiritual stuff' might be hoax; but that knowledge I AM aka Consciousness is not a hoax/trick.

@winterknight As you've read drik drishya viveka yourself, I would like to hear your thoughts on the 6 vedantic meditations mentioned at the last part of the text. Everytime I've tried them, it feels like self-inquiry. Feeling the I AM and discriminating everything the I AM is not along the way...

1) When you cease to imagine things, do 'you' cease to exist? 2) In between two thoughts, do 'you' cease to exist? 3) When a thought or sensation passes away, do you feel that a part of yourself has evaporated as well? 4) How much thought, language, god, chakra, science, books, 'common sense', money, other people do you need to simply notice that you are aware?

Do you notice the common thread in all these experiences? Is there any particular sound, sight or sensation that is staying constant without any fluctuation? But isn't there a common experience of 'being aware' in all of them? Any god, human right, law, justice, nation, money, chakra, sensations etc can trick us. In fact we can never know what's really out there; whether our perception is really tricking us or not. But that sense of primordial I AM or I AM AWARE; that is infallible. No experience or perception can overturn that. The very denial of it, establishes and confirms the presence of it! If there is one 'thing' you can call as absolute knowledge even in the midst of constant trickery, it is this I AM AWARE knowledge. That is Consciousness. You can rest in that

@moon777light 1) Are you aware of the soles of your feet? 2) Are you aware of the sensations in your chest? 3) Are you aware of the sounds around you? 4) Are you aware?

Are you aware right now?

Remember that self inquiry is not a mind suppressing or concentration meditation on a single object. It is about being aware of the presence of the subject(awareness) with respect to any object(thought) that arises...and seeing how the subject remains unaffected and still no matter what...over and over again @Aakash Self inquiry as originally prescribed is supposed to be done all throughout the day as much as possible. In the beginning stage, having a sitting practice helps to get a 'feel' of it. After a while, it is encouraged to do it even while doing daily activities.

A question might arise why self-inquiry is the way that it is and not something else. Why is it particularly about awareness being aware of itself without conjuring up other things? We can be clear about it if we ask, ''what is it that knows anything at all?''. It's ONLY Awareness that can know. It is NOT a thought, a model, a body, a brain, a sensation, a scientific theory, a complex logical argument, a spiritual belief etc that has the knowing capacity; Only Awareness possesses this knowing capacity. In fact, the very word 'Awareness' means presence of That which is aware or which is pure knowing itself. So if Enlightenment is discovering the nature of Awareness, what can we rely on? ONLY Awareness can provide 'knowledge' about anything. That's why Awareness has to lock on itself to know itself for what it actually is; not what it imagines it to be. It's the thoughts and sensations that imagine Awareness to be what it is not. And during self-inquiry, we are seeing through that error exactly, over and over again. Remember this point everytime you start getting lost in thoughts and clever arguments. Another corollary to this principle is, take your stand as Awareness to explore yourself in self-inquiry. It's not the body that knows, it's not the thoughts that know; it's ONLY Awareness that can know and all the above mentioned objects themselves are 'known' by Awareness. This is exactly why no thought or model or 'thing' can ever reveal the TRUTH of Awareness; they can only conjure their own judgments, opinions and limitations on Awareness. It may sound so obvious when formulated like this but notice how many times we circle around the most common traps. See how this contemplation and line of reasoning melts all the gross and subtle identification with forms over time...

@Max_V You are onto something really cool! See it from this angle..Reality Vs Appearance. An appearance is everything that it's Reality is NOT! For example.. 1) TV Screen(Reality) Vs The Movie(appearance): Never in the movie, the screen itself appears. The movie is basically everything the screen is not. 2) Play of Light(Reality) Vs The Mirage of a pond(Appearance): That illusory pond appears as other than a play of light. 3) Absolute Reality/Self(Reality) Vs Universe(appearance): This universe appears as everything that the Self is inherently NOT. The Self (Reality) ----------------------------------------------The Universe(appearance) 1) Infinite Limited in space 2) Ever present/eternal Bound in Time 3) Unaffected Subject to causality 4) Immovable Movement 5) Unchanging Constantly changing 6) Non-dual Dual with multiplicity and diversity 7) Self-luminous Can't exist objectively on itself 8) No level/facet/parts Can be integrated or disintegrated in parts 9) Truth A lie in itself alone. But Truth when recognized as the Self. 10) The 10th commandment just to make it sound official

Well according to some 24th dimension propaganda, it is using honey and milk to awaken the dragon. I don't know...

You're misunderstanding my post. By Awareness, I'm referring to the Self which has no level. And no 'thing' or 'human body' exclusively possess Awareness. Notice that in order to make any legitimate claim, there has be a 'knowing' first. If you say ''No body-mind, no awareness'', then the question is how do you 'know' that as a fact? You are either talking from experience, or you are speculating and depended on beliefs and hearsay. Do you see that your very denial of Awareness actually establishes the presence of Awareness before anything else?

Tell me about that horror story where X always believed he circulated his blood in his body and freaked out that his blood might stop circulating once he knew that he wasn't in control of circulating his blood

Other times, it's just that we might be executing that pretending act better

If you think about it, there is actually no way to verify if we are EVER on the same ground when communicating through language. We pretend that we are.. freaky stuff indeed...

@tsuki @Sashaj And knowing all this, we will still fall into traps and circle in the maze as @purerogue mentioned. It is inevitable and part of learning this game. But I was talking about building this infallible premise where one can come back over and over again, no matter how many times he is lost in the maze. Hope that made sense

@Sashaj @tsuki I understand your concerns. We pretty much all know that no 'practice' can lead to Enlightenment, yet we must play this game called self-inquiry to realize that. Self-inquiry is a 'game' and so one should play it by the rules. Or else, as Leo mentioned in the video, people can waste a lot of time and effort doing stuff technically wrong and then giving it all up and Worse, starting a crusade against the game. To make this game called self-inquiry effective, you must start with experience; not with a belief or assumption(however grand that scientific or spiritual belief is). That premise is acknowledging the supremacy and irreducible nature of Awareness. It's not a phenomena that knows, it is ONLY Awareness that knows. And the very purpose of self-inquiry is to harness this discrimination process over and over again. One's attitude while doing self-inquiry should not be like, ''I , this body-mind named such and such is now gonna practice self-inquiry''; that person will get lost in all sorts of thoughts and delusion. One's attitude should be like, ''I, Awareness am the only knowing element here and I'm gonna explore my experience through self-inquiry now WITHOUT referring to thoughts and beliefs as they are clearly not the knowing element here''. One can easily waste tons of hours doing spiritual practices in the wrong manner. That's why most gurus of the direct path pop the cherry from beginning and instruct students to sit in meditation as Awareness; not as a body-mind with a personal history.

Whatever little question/strategy/formula you take, the purpose of self-inquiry is to take one to that stage of Awareness being aware of itself and staying there more and more with stable focus. The questions, timing, discrimination process may and will vary from person to person. I ain't feeding anyone shit here