Gabriel Antonio

chakras are pools of energy in spiral that flows in our body. when a chakra is closed, the energy doesn't flow. when we open them up, the energy flows.

sometimes when i am lazy, my grandma scolds me. this is a wake-up call to me.

i wrote on my wall today "expect self-doubt". this is a reminder to stay aware and mindful that this will happen. in other words, just the awareness that self-doubt is occurring already helps get rid of it. you will recognize it and say, "OH! this is self-doubt." and it will be in-the-moment. by noticing it, it dissolves.

@Dragallur cold showers are therapy hehe your mum is against meditation?

why follow what Leo say so blindly? what i would suggest is to exaggerate your behavior. so sit on your couch even though you don't feel like it anymore so that you TRULY know how it makes you feel. at one point, you will simply outgrow it.

All is well... that's a beautiful mantra

whenever i try to force to compassionate, it is not genuine. if i genuinely want to act like an asshole, i will. holding myself back through guilt and fear ("of being evil") is the worst thing that can happen. when i genuinely follow my desires, i naturally start having compassion, true compassion.

Here they are: 1- SLIGHTLY MOVING MY LIPS When I am with strong emotions, I move my lips. This kind of ruins the meditation, because the point of meditation is not to talk to yourself. It gives me no sense of purification. On the other hand, when my mind is very loud, but I am able to keep my mouth shut, I feel the purification. Possible solution: Prior to meditation, yawn really hard twice and make weird and spontaneous sounds with my mouth for about 2 minutes. This way, my mouth will get tired. 2- PLANNING WHAT TO DO AFTER THE MEDITATION IS DONE I have got this habit a few months. I do get a lot of creative ideas that I wouldn't have otherwise had. Also, I feel this is what mind wants to do. However, it feels like I am more doing visualization than meditation. Possible solution: Just allow it to be and eventually I will get tired of doing that. 3- AVERSION TO EXTERNAL SOUNDS Everything: People, constructions, but especially music. When my neighbor is playing loud, low-consciousness music; I get lost in the song and the beat. In a way, I fear that shitty song will toxify my thoughts & subconscious mind. I usually close window mindfully, or if that's not enough, I go to another room. Possible solution: Experiment to be with the music throughout a meditation sitting. If you want, share your experience...

@Guivs I can hold this as a belief, but I still don't have a direct experience of that. Maybe one day I will...

What I notice in myself is that if I am having in meditation, that means stuff is coming to the surface that I was trying to numb down in my day-to-day life. Meditation always helps. It is like baking a bread. Suzuki Roshi says that in times of great difficulty, there is nothing that can helps us more than sitting. Realize what you're going through is a phase. Try to limit the most negative behaviors and keep meditating...! Remember that meditation in a way is just sitting, so everything that's coming up already exists in you. You are only becoming aware of them.

When I am feeling very high consciousness, I sleep for 4 hours. I experienced that when one day that I had very intense meditation sessions in which that Fear showed its face to me. And I was constantly challenging it. "What do you got? You show me more!" Anyway, this day I realized how fear runs my life and I don't even know it. So for this day, I simply didn't want to sleep. When I actually slept, it felt as if it were a very light sleep, as if my consciousness was still awake. All in all, that's not something I can force. It simply happens.

I have had a similar experience. I have been doing a lot of comfort zone challenges, which means I am constantly challenging my fear. I have gone so far with stepping outside of my comfort zone that I feel I need a break. My intuition is to keep meditating no matter what. I feel this fear and anxiety phase I am going through is a phase necessary for a deep purification. The point is to know when confront the fear head-on and when to choose not to fight the dragon. I feel like confronting fear is like going into a black hole. It is so magnetic yet it is so scary, because it feels as if there will be nothing left, it feels as if there's no way out.

Prohibiting Debates -- A Sneaky Form of Moralizing Recently, it has been prohibited to engage in debates on different approaches to non-duality. You may say, “Oh… but this is necessary to prevent the forum to turn into chaos.” But what if people are in different stages of their journeys, and they need to get through this debating phase? Ok, the truth will not come from debating, but why prohibit it? Isn’t that like saying, “This forum should be high conscious”? I know that I am going against the grain here, that I might get banned, that I might be judged. But who cares? What kind of high consciousness forum does not allow users to express themselves freely? If a topic annoying, just ignore it. There might be people who can profit from them. I know practice is much harder than theory. Reaching a state of no rules require a certain level consciousness; otherwise, things can be turn into chaos. Is our level of consciousness so low that we need to start banning people who are newbies? I can sense a strong of criticism coming at me. That’s ok because sometimes someone has to sacrifice himself for something new to rise.

Thank you for the input, guys.

@Arman it's very hard to make a distinction between "intuition" and the ego. In my case, most of the time is just a bullshit resistance. And I find that if I am "overdoing" it, my body simply "crashes." So, in a way, I am learning this through trial and error. But in a way, I find it is better to overdo it than to be lazy.

In this video, one of the guys says that meditation can be used to procrastinate action. What do you guys think? To me it helps clear my mind to know exactly the best action steps to solve something without getting emotional.

1- What do you think of Thich Nhat Hahn? 2- What do you think of Jack Kornfield?

"You're only insecure because you can't stand it. You CAN stand it, actually. So stand it. Break the cycle." Yes!!! I love what you said here!!! Thanks a lot!!!

I have just realized how SDS is the way to go to totally transform my life. I have noticed that fear is pervasive in my life, and I can’t take this anymore. I have noticed how every advice I hear I take it to heart without questioning it, always with a fear that I will screw things up. And I end up doing actually. I lose focus very easily because of this fear. But somehow I feel like my higher self is presenting itself. But at the same time, I am also aware that I can look a bit neurotic from an outsider point of view, namely because my mother actually, society in general forces us to be normal, to be a good person otherwise they will get worried with you. This is a cliché, yes, but it is fucking true. I feel my stomach chakra is opening. I have got loads of willpower, and my shame is vanishing. But at the same time, I don’t know what to do when the shame comes back again. Because I know it will. It always does. I can't stand being so insecure and be a bitch to the world. I need help. Feel free to judge me as being neurotic, because in my head I am the most neurotic person in the planet. I was thinking of changing my meditation habit from 4 hours of do nothing to 2 hours of SDS and 2 hours of Shikatanza. I have to be aware that my do nothing meditation is what brought me here, so I can’t dismiss it. At the same time I can’t live the way I am. The standard is just too damn low. I have got to change something. Fast. I am tired of being afraid of feeling any discomfort whatsoever. I know that I will have to confront my fear. And if I am not 100% courageous, I will fail. That's scary. I fear of going mad... Maybe I can just relax. I have just released a lot of emotional baggage in this one meditation session. So I can practice relaxation now. But, hell, I don't even know how to relax properly without falling into those stupid addictions I have. ._.

Btw, today I also practiced for the first time Osho's dynamic meditation. Maybe I could incorporate that into my routine... I don't know how well it would turn out. It was really challenging yet it felt nice. So instead of 4 hours of do nothing, maybe I can do: 1 hour - dynamic meditation 2 hour - sds 1 hour - shikatanza what do you guys think? I can try for a week and see how it goes. I don't know, I am second guessing myself, because I like to focus on just one technique. But maybe I gotta change things around. Maybe today was a hit of consciousness that told me what I need to change in my practice. I realize that I have got super extra energy today, so I can't really expect this to happen every single day. In other words, I have to strategize in a way that I can still get something out of today, while being able to be consistent. I can't expect to act so perfectly like I did today. I know that my ego is already taking control of everything again. So I have to plan to fight it consistently. Make progress every single day. That's the key here... because consistent is more important than perfection. Right? It's so crazy to see how fucked up your life really is when you get those moments of freedom. But then you gotta come back and deal with the every day shit that's around. All the pervasive stupidity and distractions. Fear is so sneaky...

You are really stuck, aren't you?

Live it. Later on, you'll naturally step out of it.

"Not always so" (Suzuki Roshi)

"Listen to your body" > Yes!! That's music to my hears.

I'm facing something similar to this. There's a construction taking place close to my place. It's really hard to concentrate & easy to get irritated ("WHY IS THIS NECESSARY???" and "WHY DO THEY HAVE TO BUILD ANOTHER BUILDING??? AWWWWWWWW!!" are common thoughts I have had). It is possible to let go and fully embrace the noise. I tell myself something like, "Ok... this noise is going to happen forever. Every single minute I'm living, I will have to deal with this noise." This way, I am able to surrender. In the beginning, there's resistance. After a good hour of meditation, I end up getting used to the noise and I even kind of like it. (Just like what happens with pain). It's a process... a new way to see the world. Being OK with discomfort. It takes a lot of courage.