InfinityBeats

And to add to the above, my "wordly" life is generally successful as well. I have a great relationship and am about to get married, I have a great career that pays well with a job that I really don't mind, and I have tons of hobbies. It's just this spiritual seeking that feels like an addiction that I want to get rid of once and for all but can't seem to.

@Leo Gura For the most part, I've been really happy, especially due to teachings such as those of Abraham Hicks, which have shifted my focus away from expecting future things/accomplishments to make me feel better to just accepting that feeling better is all I want, and if I feel good and satisfied then the manifestations don't matter. Since getting into that about a year and a half ago, my general happiness levels have truly skyrocketed, and I feel deep appreciation whenever I recognize that I'm doing something that I like and makes me feel good, such as reading a book, watching a TV show, going for a walk, having a good workout etc. My post isn't talking about my life as a whole, it's talking about these moments that come along where I get stuck craving "enlightenment", and even though I'm generally happy in life, there are moments where this wanting of enlightenment is basically an annoying thorn in my side that I just want to get rid of, and I've tried just accepting the desire for enlightenment, and I've also tried meditating regularly, but it hasn't really made it go away so I'm trying to now push on it a bit more.

I do and I have woken up on psychedelics but I have always "come back" into the illusion, both voluntarily due to not wanting to be alone, or involuntarily due to the drug wearing off and me essentially accidentally getting caught up in beliefs/thoughts until I could no longer see Oneness/God/Infinity/Self/Truth anymore. I could go on and on talking about those experiences, but that would just be more thoughts. Plus the memories of the experiences themselves are also just thoughts now so they might as well have not even happened, plus I feel like if anything, they are misleading me by creating an expectation of what awakening should be.

And to elaborate on "which is why I'm hoping for someone to help me untangle this right now." I guess I'm hoping for someone to help free me. I am imagining that there is something wrong, and that someone other than me can help me fix it. To more accurately drill into what I'm feeling, I'm feeling frustrated that I'm not awake/enlightened or that I have not yet awoken to the no self realization. This frustration feels like physical sensations that I guess I'm resisting on some level + fearing/dreading continuing to experience them for who knows how long. I will try to just allow them and inquire into them.

This video sums it up well

My self identity is just a bunch of thoughts. I have no idea what "I", the thing looking right now truly is. To even say there is a thing looking is just more thoughts. But there is clearly an "aliveness"

But to be fair, there are certain thoughts/stories in my head that still have a grasp on me to some degree. I feel present right now, but I believe that If I sit here for long enough, something will make me give up and go to sleep, such as the thought that I have to work tomorrow so if I don't give up and go to sleep, I will end up tired all day tomorrow.

That just feels like another story, another future goal, another thought. Nothing that isn't here right now feels real to me, which is why I'm hoping for someone to help me untangle this right now.

I feel like I've questioned and explored reality and my beliefs to the point where I just don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I can't have goals like I used to because I know they won't fulfill me in the way that I used to at least believe they would. I still do stuff like go to the gym, meditate, work on my career etc. but it's hard to really push through obstacles when they come up because it feels pointless to struggle to achieve a goal that won't ultimately satisfy me. When I feel like this, kind of like I do right now because I had a headache and decided not to go to the gym because of it, I just don't know what to do with myself. I was watching some videos about awakening hoping they would maybe help me get that permanent identity shift tonight which could hopefully put an end to all this seeking and "free" me, but so far nothing. I can just sit and do nothing- observe how my mind is craving answers, but becoming aware of it doesn't seem to change anything. How long am I supposed to do this for? Every time I've done it in the past, I came out of it with nothing and once again I feel like I need to "figure something out" so I can be free from this seeking. I have beliefs about solipsism and whatever, so I sincerely don't know if there is any "real" people out there that can help me, however I figured I should just act authentically, and right now me being authentic is me making this post and hoping that it helps me.

I think he's referring to questions such as: what is the point of life? are other people real? what is the best use of my time here? where did I come from? what's going to happen when I die? Is god real? Are demons real? If so what does this mean for me? If God is real, should I practice a certain religion? Is enlightenment real? Can I escape suffering all together or should I just try to make my circumstances as ideal as possible? Will good circumstances make me happy? Do I really want anything other than to just be happy? Can I always trust science and rationality? Is spirituality and religion all just bullshit? etc. This is basically the rabbit hole that I would say can be summed up as just seeking understanding. It doesn't appear that you are quite in it yet, as your main question seems just to be "what is the best thing I can do to become better off in a practical sense?" which is 100% fine and I would just keep following that question as honestly as possible, basically exactly what you are doing by posting here. If you keep following that question and keep finding new methods which bring you more and more satisfaction in life, then that's great, don't ever stop. However, it's definitely possible that at some point questions like the ones I listed above will start bothering you, and nothing will become more important than getting those questions answered, and when that happens, again just seek 100% honestly and authentically. With something like god realization, you will never get the external objective proof you are looking for, you can only try to find out for yourself. So the answer to the question of "How do you know the path of "god-realization" is both true and not a waste of time?" is: you don't know. But you can get to the point where you desire to know this answer more than anything else (aka "Understanding") and you are willing to get to the bottom of it yourself. If you get to that point, do that. Until you're there, just keep doing what you're doing.

I have been wondering this lately as well and just the other day was thinking of posting this exact thread so its funny that it popped up just now. @Leo Gura I think we are all curious because what about the "no self no problem" type thinking? Isn't enlightenment the end of suffering? If bad health is basically just lots physical pain and suffering, what about the things you said in your strong determination sitting video where monks can apparently be so conscious they can go through a tooth surgery with no aneasthesia with a smile on their face? Do you think all the spiritual work has really helped you that much now that you have a health issue or is it just that when you trip you can awaken deep enough to temporarily escape it all?

Step 1: Calm down. Realize you are fine and your soul doesn't need to be saved, all of this is just your mind being overly active and you buying into everything its suggesting without even questioning "what is a thought?" Can you see that you are totally fine in this present moment and that your mind is feeding you ideas of potential problems that you are buying into?

Day 55 of 90 Total meditation time: 26 hours Two key things happened this week: I spent a couple hours working through this emotional scale: https://www.actualityofbeing.com/the-emotional-scale which resulted in a little breakthrough when I got to the boredom part. I realized that boredom is something I have a deep aversion to, which is obvious for everyone basically, but what was interesting was when I tried to figure out what the actual feeling of boredom is. Examining it a bit deeper, boredom seems to be a physical sensation, and I noticed that I experience it most while socializing. I've always considered myself an introvert, but it seems to be that I like being by myself because it allows me to sooth the pain of boredom most easily. The problem with constantly soothing the pain of boredom is that it doesn't seem to allow you to find out what you truly want to do. If you sit down with the goal of letting yourself be bored for 30 minutes, by the end of those 30 minutes, you will probably have some kind of conscious desire of where you want to channel your energy rather than just channeling it into scrolling on your phone or something because its the most efficient way to sooth that pain of boredom immediately. I also had a mini awakening while completely sober from just watching this video: It wasn't a very deep or stable awakening, but it still was the closest I've ever felt to being on a psychedelic while being completely sober. I haven't done psychedelics in years, but this video gave me such a clear reminder of what it's like when everything is exposed to be just one substance and that that substance is you. This was super exciting to feel again and even more exciting to feel without needing any drugs.

Just some additional kind of unrelated thoughts: I saw some people talking about Kanye on the forum and I saw the interview of him with Tucker Carlson. Then I started looking at the comments and seeing how invested people were in all of this and how completely polarized peoples opinions can be on stuff like this, and I just want to write this here to keep reminding myself to stay completely away from all that type of shit unless its being consumed in a super light hearted way or if I'm specifically analyzing those types of situations for a specific purpose. While my meditation habit has lots of room to improve, I think all the work I've done so far in my life, including all the spiritual "theory" I've consumed over the years, has made me soooo much better at not getting too caught up in distractions like these. I can't think of a better term for it than distraction. If my reality and my mind are infinite, and I can choose to focus on anything, why would I waste my time on things like that?

Day 48 of 90 Total meditation time: 23 hours Still struggling to maintain my hour a day, this time it's because my fiancee and I got a dog on Monday. I've never owned a dog before and it is definitely a big responsibility. I'm seeing that while it's easy for me to get into those nice happy flow states like mentioned above when my external environment is good, I still struggle a lot when I have to deal with external stressors. All the meditation and spirituality work I've done over the past 8 or 9 years has definitely helped me deal with these kinds of problems better than I could have before, but I still think it could all be handled waaay better. I've been trying to not be too hard on myself to keep up with a really strict meditation routine because I've been very strict with myself before and it always ends in some kind of burnout, but the at the same time, discipline clearly has value. I will need to get a better understanding of how to balance this.