kurt

@Annie Maybe the insecurities are there because you imagine this man to by "your" husband? We come here, we're given everything freely and it can be taken away in an instant - all without our permission. Change your attitude to one of gratitude and stop being so egotistical

Omg this is true! Am totally sick of all my bullshit at the moment, is this a no-self thing, or a revisioning of values?

We don't experience a sense of ego, only apparently, but not in reality

@Orange Only "special" people understand it lol. What is a rock? Where is it located? Go get a rock and observe it and tell me where it is located. Or anything. Hold your hand up in front of your face. Where is your hand located? If you believe "I" is the body, then you will take the hand to be outside you. If you understand that "I" is not the body, that the body is in the "I" then the hand will appear in you. * Just as a tip, have you heard of something called Jappa? It's a mantra you can repeat in meditation to break identification with the body by observing the spaces between the verses. Add it to your meditation routine, I think it will help you a lot

OK

Exactly! Why not eh? Love and hate, good and bad are only apparently real, so why would we need to be compassionate or non compassionate when there is nothing to be gained or lost?

@Bronsoval Its a non dual reality. What do you think? Is it ok to hate yourself?

@lukmi I think it's really important to get this handled because it's obviously important to you, and nobody can really self actualize until they have been there done that in most avenues of life. Too many unresolved issues can lead to depression and then attempts to solve the issue through spirituality when all else fails. The thing is, trying to get these issues handled through spirituality is not going to work and only going to make the problem worse. So you are right about wanting to get this handled asap and get it out the way so that you understand for yourself that ultimate fulfillment lies already inside you. But like I say, that kind of journey within only really happens when the world is seen as a zero-sum situation. For now, if you have not already, try to figure out your own values. What are your top ten values for your immediate life goals? What kind of person do you envisage being? Take your time with that, because it's important! Look at your values regularly, update them, let your mind roam around what might be possible for you, something you really want from life. Keep writing it in your journal and get a real picture in your mind of the kind of guy you think you have a right to be. This is your life were talking about, and you only get one life, one shot, so pencil in whatever you like. Next you want to programme your mind with these values. I suggest you take up a meditation habit first and get good at it. Get good at relaxing your body with a 2 minute body scan, a pranayama technique, and sitting in the present moment resting as awareness. If you get good at meditation you won't believe how quickly your problems will go away. Sit in meditation and watch your thoughts. Look at the thought, and hold it up in light of your highest values and ask yourself if this thought is something that is conducive to your highest purpose? Accept that the thought is there, don't fight it, but don't agree with it either. Just look at it. Then pick another thought that you believe in and fits your purpose perfectly and burn that thought into your mind for 10-30 seconds. Do this every time you get the feeling come back, just relax into your meditation and let your mind remind you of your values. Eventually with time your mind will just serve you thoughts related to your purpose automatically without you needing to do anything. Lastly, offer your actions to life itself before you go out. Offer them with the intention of serving the needs of the people in your environment instead of wanting to take something. Then let go of the results. Take whatever result comes as an opportunity to learn from the interaction. 95% of the time, if you offered the action with the right intention you will not offend anyone, but just incase you get a bad result you still wont feel bad because you offered it with the right intention. If you get good at this you will succeed!

You can have nothing and still be materialistic. I think solution lies more in sorting out the need for all these things. Material goods I think are fine in themselves, I don't see society manipulating us to go for these things, I observe that it's more a case of we created society to conform to our nature. It has gotten a little out of hand in recent times since Freud and his "unconscious aggressive desires" theory, but our basic apparent nature is always been to look outside ourselves for comfort and security. That seeking is the structure which is present, but the content of the structure changes as technology advances. So it's a little bit more tricky than assigning the blame to society at large for manipulating is. If you want to delve deeper I could suggest you are being manipulated in some ways by the literature you are reading regarding this phenomena (which in my experience does not solve the actual problem, but merely displaces it to something apparently "outside" oneself in the culture and therefore outside of one's responsibility to deal with. The only realistic solution I am aware of is meditation and a spiritual education, and by spiritual I don't mean a spirituality of attempting to transform society at large to serve the emotional needs of the species (a careful analysis of your experience will reveal that this is already the case because we are all already getting our 'emotional' needs met), but a personal transformation, because that really is the only control you do have in this life. You can't change the collective causal body, you can only change your part of it.

That's what I said, for every gain there is an equal loss. For example, if you get a woman because you're lonely, it will solve your loneliness, but in procuring a partner you have also lost something - freedom to do what you want. That's what life for the ego is like, it's like banging it's head against the brick wall of life until it caves in. I gave you the benefit of the doubt by assuming you would know what that feels like in real life, its the dark night of the soul - understanding that you cannot win in this life. Liberation comes soon after. Samsara, the world of appearances is a zero sum game, appearance is set up this way to teach you who you are, not to give you what you want.

I understand. Take a break, sort out your values (take a holiday to think about what you want) and then get your habits in order. This IS the work. Hundreds of hours of videos and content is not the work, the content should be assimilated very gradually in tandem with the practical efforts and habits. For example, I'm doing a new meditation course, it's 12 hours worth of audio. I listen to a portion, and then practice that until I get it right and it's natural, then I move on. It took me a year to learn one meditation technique. Then I had to wait a while after that to get the real benefits. Everything takes time.

If we think the belief that we can think our way to becoming rich, like it's going to fall into our laps without any work, then yes, the belief causes suffering. But the real thing is about learning how to work the object world (because all the laws are there to be studied and used for benefit) we just need to learn how life works. Life works by having the right attitude and doing the things that work. If we don't learn and keep doing the same thing over and over then life does not work for us, and we become miserable. But the misery is in our court, we just were too pig headed to learn, or were too emotionally messed up to see what the patterns were. So its all about learning and harmonizing with life that gets you what you want. Follow the dharma (ethics) in the business world, learn the ropes there and you will be a success! This is reflected in all areas of life.

The thoughts appear from the causal body, which is sometimes called "the unmanifest". Some non dual religions say that the causal body is also the "deep sleep state". Western psychology terms it the "subconscious mind". But it's just a model, no need to get attached to the model, it's just to show us how to navigate samsara. Every time you complete an action you condition the causal body and you to repeat that action again. Thoughts, feelings and behaviours come from the causal body and are "dumped" into you without your say so. In this respect you have no free will because the causal body is much subtler than you and you are unable to directly manipulate it. You can manipulate a football because its a gross object, but you can't manipulate the causal body. There are two types of causal body, and they merge into one another. One is the personal causal body, and the other is the macrocosmic causal body. When Carl Jung speaks of the collective unconscious hes speaking of the macrocosmic causal body. So this is the special nothingness where the thoughts come from. You cannot control the collective shadow, but you can control your part of it. I'll show you how here Follow this method of burning in new habitual thoughts into your part of the causal body and you will be fine. You cannot get enlightened without doing this kind of work anyway. Hope this clears is up.

LOL, not exactly. Material success is fine, but the point is that it's not going to make one complete. Life sure can be improved by material success, pray to Isvara for health and happiness and favourable conditions for enlightenment to happen an' all that eh?

@Mercy The law of attraction works, and it's not at odds with enlightenment. Yoga has been using techniques for thousands of years to bring about "good karma", things like Bhakti Yoga I assume are "worship of life" which means learning the universal psychological and physical laws of life to understand and work the system in the ego's favour: If you pump iron youre more likely to get the girls. It's just common sense and logic! Really! It won't bring liberation (because you already are liberated and whole and complete anyway), but done correctly it can prepare your mind for liberation and make you super happy... even so happy you might even forget about enlightenment lol So no conflict here. * A point on free will. Free will exists from the apparent persons point of view. But it's a little subtle. It means the only choice you have is to go with life (worship life like I said before) or, you can turn against life and be miserable. THAT is your choice. You cant control anything else except your intention to try in life. Have your desires, worship your desires, but become outcome independent because outcome independence is a law of life you need to follow to get what you want. All in harmony with enlightenment, nothing to worry about here!

Animals and humans are just food. The activity in the brain is just chemistry (thoughts), it's not sentient. Only consciousness is sentient, but it is not local to any living animal. So nothing is aware, not even humans, humans and animals are just programmes. The subtle body is developed in animals and humans and this is what dies with the gross body. But consciousness is just knowledge of all this, that is the thing that is aware.

In other words, non binding preferences. Thank you Great response

No, I meant, who gives a toss id enlightenment is a lie or not

Also, the I is not experiencing life, look at experience, it is also an object. Consciousness is not really an "I" or an I thought, its easier to get a sense of it through pondering objects, what is knowing of objects? A rock existed before people, rock "knowledge" must have come from somewhere, and the knowing of rocks. That is what the Eastern Traditions mean by consciousness. Consciousness is not local to humans or animals, but humans are the only ones who can become enlightened because we have the capacity to think about it.

@Orange That's where it stops. Knowing, you dont need to regress the I back to infinity, people have tried that and they go insane, not enlightened lol. One of the reasons we need scripture and it be unfolded to us by a competent teacher. Why don't you consider learning meditation? It will help you to experience this for yourself, take a look at what is going on there. But like I say, it goes hand in had with the scripts, because you can't figure it out by yourself, its all logic.

Who cares?

Never claimed i was Thats in your head, like your little depressive world.

No wonder youre depressed.

Are you drunk john?

Do you meditate? When you meditate you know by inference that despite all the changing objects there is only one constant, the "seer". During meditation you can see that when an experience happens the ego pops up and claims the experience as "I am feeling ______ "I am thinking_____ But close inspection reveals this process to you, so it cannot be "you". I think, yet... I AM. It's the "I" watching the "I" that claims possession of the apparent reflection that consciousness projects