charlie2dogs

Your situation is normal for a human being functioning as the identity. Functioning as the identity always leads to confusion in many ways. You are just basically tossed about from one thing to another in search of what you think will make you happy. This idea that you will have to give up things to move into enlightenment and self actualization is very confining, it has nothing to do with giving up. The problem is your entire thought process is governed by the thought process of the identity, ego, programing, and false belief. You are not in a position of making a real choice, your choices are being made for you by those things. If you want to have some choice in things you will have to move into a state of being that will allow that, one that ends the confusion of your thought process, one that replaces the programing and false belief with reality. But then you have this idea and thought that you must give up much to be in that space of being, so in reality you are in a self defeating mode. You need clarity, you need to see reality not what the identity and ego want you to see and feel. To do that you will have to function as something other than the identity. First thing get rid of this idea that you have to give up things to become self realized, because becoming self realized is your only way out of the box you have created for yourself. Then you will have to figure out how to become self realized if that becomes important to you, there are many theories and methods, philosophies, doctrines that you can play with for life times. I have written several times on the site the shortest, most direct way to achieve self realization but if the desire is not there, it will be useless to pursue from the identity. If your consciousness has begun to awaken and there is some desire to know the realities of yourself and life rather than believe nonsense, then there is hope for a new beginning which may lead to liberation from the identity and ego, programing and false beliefs. To make constructive choices first you must be in a state of being that will allow you to have clarity and see reality rather than the nonsense of the physical world, to do that you cannot be attached to what is before you. You have to see it as the observer only, as that the event will reveal itself to you , then you will be in a state of being that will make it possible for you to dismiss the event altogether or give attention to it and allow it to become more, but in this process there will be no mistake, no doubt, no failure. You basically continue to function as the fictitious identity that you think you are or seek to be the true being that you are, which is a being of consciousness functioning in a liberated state of being, (if) you are ready. and the answer to that lies within your own consciousness, and that will reveal itself as a desire for liberation, even though you may not fully understand, liberation from what in the beginning, it will become clearer as you awaken more to the realization of who and what you really are.

it is like, all sickness and disease are self created, what takes root in consciousness is going to produce something, be it a reward or consequence so to speak. The world hasnt understood the workings of consciousness, and what is being programed into consciousness every day by unlearned humans. As far as the car accident, its not so hard to understand, many become very careless in life because they function as the identity and not the being of consciousness that they really are, and that carelessness can become programed in consciousness, which may create something that appears as an accident, but in reality it was self created.

Ivonne you will discover in life that only a very few people have any integrity, dignity, and honor. Sometimes its best to not let others know your personal life, because most of them cannot and will not handle it with any respect for you.

why are you meditating, what is the purpose behind it. what are you doing in this meditation and what benefits are you getting from it, and what do you expect to get from it.

what you are telling us is that you have no control over yourself in how much you use the phone or whether you use the phone at all. Stop carrying the phone, turn it off except for certain times for specific reasons, and if you want to eliminate it, just drop it in the commode, problem solved

if you really understand about past manipulation, negative influence, deceit and mind control that things have had on you, then your consciousness has apparently begun to awaken from the dream. Books and teachers can only point you in the direction of further awakening, it takes a life changing experience to undo those things, and that life changing experience has to do with self realization and oneness with the life force within you that is possessing the physical body. The shortest most direct path to achieve your goal, without spending a lifetime of running in circles trying out everyone's theories and philosophies is to begin to spend more time with that life force within you, you can do that by sitting quietly, being still, and experiencing that part of yourself, be one with it, the real part of you. Other times contemplate the experience, question it and your relationship to it. During this quiet time you need to be totally in the moment with the life force. Anything arising, simply ignore and stay with the process, it will be hard in the beginning but it will get easier. To attain liberation you must be the master and not the identity.

you said: she told me that he is just one more friend, that is just a boyhood friend (and its true), but im very very jealous about it and that is making me depressed, If it is true as you say then why are you jealous, you dont know that it is true, you have doubts about that is why you are jealous and you are very insecure about yourself. Jealousy is a human emotion particular when you cling to or have expectations of others or you want to be the center of her attention only. my advice is drop it, get over it stop this thought process you have going on, and enjoy the relationship, what is a relationship without trust, it is nothing, and if you are going to be jealous and depressed over it, you will only destroy the relationship,

greendahl, you are so right about the myths and misconceptions regarding enlightened beings, and all of those misconceptions are held by people who are not enlightened, have no experience in enlightenment, but yet they seem to have all the answers to what enlightenment is. They are only fooling themselves, they have no clue about enlightenment. It is all speculation and an attempt to rationalize something they have no understanding of. Religious fanaticism and newageism has destroyed the true meaning of many things because what is being taught is nothing more than nonsense. Most hold a false belief system that has warped everything they know, think, feel, say and do. You can believe anything but that will never make it real. Belief is nothing more than an assumption of knowledge. the answers to your questions are no, to all of them, for what that is worth to you, but if you can begin to understand why the answer is no you may have a chance at becoming enlightened or rather self realized at a point yourself. Personally i dont use the term enlightened i call it self realization, which is what it really is, It is about waking from the dream and a transition that involves functioning as a being of consciousness, which is our true nature, rather than the fictitious identity that we have created to experience this physical existence. Another example is love, most think love is a series of acts performed by the identity, Love is not an act performed it is a state of being, by a self realized being, and only a self realized being is that state of being, the rest is based on thoughts and emotions that those functioning as the identity call love. rationalization and intellectualization of things that humans don't and can't understand as the human identity leads to a lot of confusion about these things, and that confusion is carried on to the generations that follow. Another example is the use of drugs, some actually think that drugs can lead to enlightenment, they actually think that what they experience on drugs is real, or is some spiritual thing. Self realized beings function in an altered state of consciousness, but it is a state of clarity, it is their true nature and original state of being that enables them to be able to experience truth and reality apart from the physical identity. The human identity has no access to truth and reality. All the answers to your questions can be had from the core of your being, can you separate it from the identity with its thought process based on feelings, emotions, beliefs and programing to obtain the reality of those things, that is the real question. another thing you may learn is that when you awaken from the dream, those who haven't will view what you speak about as your opinion or your belief, they don't understand that you have moved beyond opinion and belief to truth and reality. Programing, belief systems, and warped perceptions never touch reality.

Walking meditation is great but how will you perform that? There was a time when i used to do walking meditation, the way i did it was to experience every movement in the step, being one with and being present in the movement, basically i was forcing myself to experience the moment, and using walking as the means to be aware in the moment. It takes a lot of focus and concentration.

Where is reality found How do you know when what you think you know is real Drugs will never take you to enlightenment, and there is the possibility that your meditation won't either. My question is what are you meditating for?, and what are you doing in this meditation? What is the real purpose of your meditation? You seem to be basing a lot on a trip that you took with mushrooms, do you have any idea where those perceptions came from or why you had them, while you was on the schroons? What does enlightenment mean to you? To be honest with you based on what you have written there is a lot of contradictions and confusion in your statements. You said you didn't care because you have no body or ego to preserve anymore, you don't know if your meditation is your path to enlightenment, all of this is just thoughts and speculation, its not an actual living experience. I often wonder how anyone can trust what they experience while on drugs. How many self realized beings do you know, and how many of them promote the use of drugs? Just a few questions for you to ponder and answer if you like.

the problem you have presented is this, as the identity you are trying to fix things, trying to rationalize things about personal growth trying to improve your life. Self realization is about functioning as a being of consciousness, from consciousness and not the identity. The two cannot be incorporated, I have observed that many are dealing with issues of the identity, and in dealing with issues of the identity there will be no ending. You remain as the identity and work with issues, doctrines and philosophies or You become self realized and all that nonsense goes away, you exist in a state of peace, joy, without problems. There is no past to create problems, no future to create problems, only the moment of now, being in a conscious, aware, present state of being that no longer sees problems but observes events that may arise in the moment which can be discarded or seen as an opportunity for further evolution of your own consciousness. If you want out of the dream you must stop trying to resolve issues of the identity and focus on becoming self realized. You can work on issues of the identity forever and you may never become self realized. So what is the answer to these things, seek self realization, then the issues of the identity will dissolve

You said: The process of Enlightenment has always excited me. But the feeling of dread arises the more I think about the loss one must experience on this path. If you are not enlightened how do you know that there is any loss in experiencing self realization? Your statements are just thoughts they have nothing to do with the reality of self realization, if you were self realized you wouldn't be saying these things. and there would be no problems.

Why did your family need to know you were meditating in the first place? Maybe you should have kept that to yourself and your own private and very important practice. Then you could have worked on your personal growth without their opinions and criticisms, Why did you feel the need for them to know what you were doing? Regroup, make your personal growth a private thing for you personally. It is apparent they dont understand what you are doing, so why involve them in it? If you want to talk about it, do it here on this site, most here will contribute the best they can to help you and i dont think you will get a lot of criticism here. there is an old saying, and dont take this the wrong way, it has nothing to do with your family, its just a lesson in how and what you share with who. The saying is cast not your pearls before swine, lest they turn and rend you and trample you underfoot. What is sacred to you, keep it to yourself unless you are sharing with like minded people. This one things creates a lot of stress and problems for many.

thoughts are the result of programing, false belief, and the warped perception that both have created as what you see and feel. The solution isn't in fighting to overcome the illusions, but to experience your core being more. Once the core being is functioning rather than the identity, the illusions, problems, pain, misery, will begin to dissolve and flow away from you. The identity cannot solve these problems.

The mind is like a garden, it can produce good fruit, or briars and thorns. You are the product of your thoughts. The answer to your question is in your own statement. You are confused because of your thought. It seems that you have no control over your thought right now and things have gotten much worse for you. One of the first problems you saw your job as a shitty factory job, rather than a job to help you accomplish what you took the job for. In order for a garden to produce good fruit, it must be tilled, fertilized and tended to all the time, the mind requires the same thing in order to have peace and produce good rather than being anxious, negative and confusion. This all relates to you functioning as the identity rather than from your core being. If you want things to get better you will have to change the way you are thinking about the things that are confusing you, and causing you these problems. Misuse of the mind can completely drain you of energy, and create a world of pain and suffering, this is what you are doing now. If you want life to be better, begin to change your thought process.

What you fear you will draw to yourself, you are trapped in fear and the past and that is because you are functioning as the identity that you think you are. Right now if you could experience being one with your core being, the real part of you and be present in the moment of now fully , there would be no fear. and no pain. you would be liberated from those things. The more you grip them the more they will grip you. Based on what you have written your only hope is to awaken from this dream called life and the identity that you think you are and be one with the life force within yourself and force yourself to live in the moment as much as you can until it becomes a natural thing. This is a must for self realization, and that is what you really need more than anything else in this life, then you can live without fear, and you will begin to draw something much better to yourself rather than the pain and misery of fear.

to try and get around telling the truth it will still be a lie. a lie of omission is when you don't tell the whole truth, if you conjure up a way in your mind to say something so that you wont be lying, it is still a lie. The moment you lie in your mind you have judged yourself, when you tell the lie you have condemned yourself. Your own actions will judge and condemn or liberate you, but a self realized being is truth, is love, is peace and has integrity. When the identity plays it creates consequences that have to be faced at some point. The only way to avoid consequences is to live in the moment and function from consciousness and not the identity body. When observing events from consciousness it gives you the opportunity to see the reality of the event, it also gives you an opportunity to make right decisions if one needs to be made. You will also be able to see the consequences of your actions before you commit them. The only way you will ever be forgiven for anything, you will have to give it yourself by changing, change brings resolution and forgiveness, you stop doing it. If you are trying to do these things from the identity body, you will fail some place, ego and desires of the flesh will trip you up unless you are rooted and grounded in the self and see these things from the self. The identity body will never touch truth or reality, and those who function as the identity only fool themselves when they claim they know the reality or truth. Truth and reality are not found in the identity body.

Mary look inside, your master is there, spend time with it, it will guide you, it will teach you, then you wont see events as problems but rather an opportunity to grow and become stronger, trust it, it will give peace and joy.

Knowing what i know now, if i could do it again it would be much easier, I would do it without all the doctrines and philosophies, teachings, programs. What i would do is two things, first one, Instead of practicing meditation as is taught I would simply be still, be quiet, and experience the life force within myself, more and more. That alone will awaken you, one thing i would add to that i would work at being fully present and aware in the moment of life, and it isnt as easy as most think in the beginning. Being present in the moment requires a lot of effort in the beginning, But in time you can be in the space of the moment for longer periods. These two things will carry you to self realization, they are the two keys that opens the door to your inner kingdom and will make self realization possible.

Sometimes when someone is working on personal growth especially in earlier stages, it helps to separate oneself from certain things and people, which can give time for the personal growth without distractions, but having said that many get caught up in the giving up things thinking that is the way, but it isnt. The ideal is to become self realized, and in that process the things in life that are causing you problems will begin to flow away from you. After self realization life is much better because it keeps you in the space of now where life can only be lived constructively, and you no longer see things as problems. It puts you in the drivers seat to determine what you allow or not allow to be in your life, and it requires no effort to do so, because in that space you see the reality of things and not just a perception of the identity. When you rise above the workings of the identity and ego, life becomes much simpler, more enjoyable and more peaceful. As a self realized being you will see and know many things that those who function in the identity cant see. As a self realized being you will know people better than they know themselves. Honestly i think many people spend too much time gathering information about personal growth and self realization than actually doing what would bring them into that state of being. Once one becomes self realized it is easy then to see that it could have been done a much better way, but for most their programing and false belief system is holding them back

i was responding to markus text

what do you mean,

How do you know what its like to live as a self realized being? You don't but you are projecting thoughts about it from the identity and ego. Your understanding and perception about this is just thoughts of the identity. If you feel like it is going to cost you everything and take away all your pleasures maybe your consciousness isn't awakening, Those ideas are totally wrong. being self realized is not about giving up stuff and things, it is about who and what you really are. Right now you are the fictitious identity functioning under programing and false beliefs that you hold and it is that which is making your decisions. No self realized being got that way by giving up stuff. When you are really interested in personal growth, as you move forward you will find that certain things will flow away from you, and you won't desire them, its not about giving up what you think is bad, or bad habits, It is about functioning from the core of your being, and enjoying what you do in life with peace and joy.

you said: I want to leave him because I can not stand being in a relationship where I am constantly judged and expected to do things and when I say "No" the person (he) gets mad. Also because he does not bring a lot of joy and has no compelling life purpose. there is your answer in your own text, leave him and get on with your life, you will know better next time, hopefully.

If you are alive it is because consciousness is possessing your body, so you do exist as a human being possessed by consciousness. Consciousness is intelligent, creative, The body only functions and is alive only because the consciousness is present within the body, and just because you can't see consciousness, doesn't mean you don't exist