ajasatya

@egoless they are rare and so are we. do you think that interesting girls are in a better situation than we are? stop thinking too little of you. this is straightforward bullshit. i am an introverted too. the difference between us related to this aspect is the fact that i did throw myself in new scenarios. i didn't just stay still and cry about the amount of uninteresting girls out there and how uninteresting they are. i went to yoga events, cookery events, religious events, spiritual conferences, retreats, naturalist events, holistic events, ayahuasca events. dude, there's a whole universe full of interesting human beings. and even after finding a woman to live with, i still do those things. i didn't do it to find a girl. i am expanding my life. getting to know interesting women wasn't even that great compared to the wholeness of life that i experienced and still experience. grow bigger. listen to thousands of people.

make deep eye contact with her. both of you'll be so present that it can be a little scary. but if you do so, there will be no rushing thoughts arising. i put a lot of effort to get used to it. make deep eye contact and scan your body. relax shoulders, face muscles, abdomen, hips, arms and legs. it goes so deep that it can feel like samadhi. that's how i met my future wife and a lot of women before her.

@egoless deep eye contact

@Echoes the baghavad gita talks about it. some people need mental images for the practice of bhakti yoga. the baghavad gita teaches krishna devotees to think of a blue human being that plays flute, even though krishna is the absolute infinity itself. the reason for this practice is a good subject for contemplation. you're going in the right direction.

@nick96 i'm going to use practical terms. you know you're neurotic when: you meet people to get something from them (social approval, sex, money etc) you can't simply stay still and do nothing... you feel impatient for no reason you worry about what people think of you you live to satisfy your senses, usually depending on porn, excessive food, loud music and/or other forms of excitement you live in a cycle of attempts to purchase happiness spiritual practices exist to help us getting rid of those by inviting us to look inside and find the root cause of our sense of poverty. we become healthy when we extinguish the cause of those symptoms. ignore spiritual terms like ego, self etc. just do the job of looking inside and finding the source of your suffering. why can't you just be? why can't you be at peace at this moment? be radically and brutally honest. there's nothing else to do.

@egoless there's a zen story with a man who wanted to be a disciple of the zen master bodhidharma. he asked bodhidharma to pacify his mind and bodhidharma said show me your mind and i will pacify it. the guy said i can't find it. bodhidharma then said there, i pacified it.

that's an impossible task. how does your tail feel?

it is relieving because it's an endless dance. atoms collide, babies are born and then die someday. volcanoes explode and kill thousands of people. stars implode/explode and destroy planets around them. galaxies blow up and entirely new zones in the universe are being created right now. if i witness a murder, i'll be sad for a while. sadness is part of the endless dance. your attempt to go moral and judge the act of others won't get you anywhere. take care of your own suffering. dance with me.

as you read these words, the universe is reading itself. as you think about what i say, the universe is thinking about what it just said to itself. when person A kills person B, the universe kills itself. i, ajasatya, typed this message. you received a message from the universe. and right now you're the universe reading its own message.

@egoless when i feel sad, the universe is feeling sadness through me. why is it wrong? i don't find sadness a bad thing. suffering comes from resisting to sadness. fear of sadness is a nightmare. if you find some teaching useless, if it doesn't touch your heart, then throw it away. just be sincere. teachings are not absolute. some people may need to listen to that teaching of no evil/good to become free of some useless feeling of guilt. in fact, we're not evil nor good. we can be ignorant. we're born ignorant and then we learn to live as we grow. we start to notice how we hurt ourselves and others and then we stop doing it. or at least we minimize it. that's all.

@egoless sadness. but this person experiences it so deeply and in such a pure and direct way that it fades away quickly. that's the real beauty of human feelings. soon enough he'll be immersed in his practice of presence.

@egoless because the so-called "enlightened person" has learned to accept it all and has found happiness. living has become a blessing.

@egoless i'm not offering you a path. it's actually impossible for you to accept someone else's path, even if you wanted to go through it. i simply said what i did. do you think you can become enlightened? that's just a belief. Truth is never coming to you nor is it leaving you. what we human beings really need is training. we have to learn how to deal with this incredibly powerful tool which we call mind, otherwise we feel run over. the day you will become enlightened will never come. you can just acquire fluency when dealing with the mind. you can achieve domain over your emotions and be a master of yourself. but trying to become something else is madness.

that's because you're still creating a mental model for whatever you are. you're still to find out what being completely free of mental self-image feels like. in practice, just watch your breath. don't think about what you are. that's why i talk about zen. it's because the practice of zen is enlightenment itself.

well, that's zen. no beliefs at all. just mindfulness practices all day long. zen is not a religion. zen is a method to train the mind to be present. what do you think zen monks do? pray to god? haha zen monks practice stillness and silence from morning to night. from bed to bed. a zen monastery is just a working facility for mindfulness practices.

@Shin very interesting. i tried it and failed really hard. and i bet you just failed too.

i completely understand you. you're somewhat like me. you know what i did? i quit my job and lived as a zen monk for a while. i was single and the option was available. so i chose the easiest option. i hope you can find your balance.

@egoless you gotta develop the wisdom to find your middle way. i am an academic. i work with computer science and i live in peace. why is that? because thinking is not wrong. thinking causes suffering when you cannot choose to shut it down. when i'm working, oh man, my focus ability is incredibly strong. and when i want to experience peace of mind, oh man, i'm able to silence reality. it's a matter of training. you have to train hard. live your life as you need to live but plan to go to mindfulness retreats. during work, the mind can go horse because the work might require horse power. but don't confuse yourself with the confusion. you're not the confusion. you're just doing work.

pray to the mystery of what you really are. pray to embrace the willpower to heal yourself. you don't need to pray with standard words. you just need to cultivate moments of profound sincerity. get in touch with your heart and study your own anguish. don't use labels given by others. find the root cause of your emotional pain and illuminate it with consciousness. it's not easy nor is it painless. but there's no other way and nobody can do it for you.

@Anton filling mankind up with wisdom and goodness is the highest purpose for any human being. one does it by filling himself up first as he fills himself up. don't think you're deluded. we all want to live in a world built with the highest potential. individualism and technology have already gotten too far. now it's time for our hearts. join us. you just need to find your way of doing so. Leo has worked for/with his speech on his youtube channel. i myself have other means: i practice and teach zen and yoga; i'm working towards embracing ayahuasca for the betterment of this planet; i and my future wife are building a family grounded on Truth; i use this forum as a way of letting my heart connect with people who live far away. Truth is not brainwashing. Truth is inspiring and liberating.

@TJ Reeves you're a wonderful human being. thank you for being exactly the way you are. you've been inspiring me since the first post of yours that i saw on this forum. the book you're writing is a true gem, a gift to mankind. i know it. your answer is aligned with what i wanted to say. i was going to talk a little about virtues, which is a closer word to me than core values because of my native language, which is brazilian portuguese.

@Afonso i remember back in the days when people talked about some prophecy which said that there would be digital gadgets that would go under the human skin and would contain data about us. like a tool for mass control. maybe that prophecy has already come true except for the fact that the gadget does not go under our skins but under our mind and fears? there's certainly a healthy way of dealing with technology. that's what we're trying to do here, for instance. what would be a healthy way of dealing with smart phones and such? it's your responsibility, as a software engineer, to answer questions like this. there are several people who are already trying to become free of the attachment to their cellphones. what do you have to say to them? what kind of app do you want to engineer to help mankind? what do apps like tinder, instagram and whatsapp contain that have been draining people's lives?

synchronized thoughts:

nah. it's kinda funny (and healthy) actually. as time goes by and i persist on my practice, people start to give in and enjoy doing it too. and there's even a smaller group of people who don't hug or make eye contact with anyone else but me. they say that being in my company is a big relief for them. that wouldn't have happened if i hadn't persisted through their resistances. i work towards encouraging them to practice it with others as well... not just me.

i implemented the habit of hugging and making deep eye contact with everyone i meet and talk with. men, women, younger, older. i don't care if it gets awkward. find centers of holistic practices near you. free your innocent child. Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 18:3)