Emptyness

@brovakhiin Well thank you kindly brovakhiin, I appreciate you taking the time to provide the in-depth description and practical advice above, you have definitely given me a lot to think about in more detail and probably helped change my perspective. I specifically enjoyed/took note of the link to evolution which previously I thought of and found painful to accept but your conclusion helped shape this for me as well as some other points which "hit home" so to speak. All the best to you and thanks again.

@brovakhiin thanks for your reply. I agree, this is something I have just picked up from my own experience and what I have been told/read and also because I have yet to hear of anything contradictory that I guess resonates with me. An Asian farmer or African tribesman would definitely wonder what I was on about, so would the majority of the population, do you think they are happy/content? Yes, both are definitely egoic pursuits, at least in my case anyway. I guess my question is more, why would I pursue a life purpose if it would not relieve suffering or make me happy and I understand that your answer is that enlightenment isn't the only way to be happy. So what do you think makes someone truly happy in this life? Thanks again for your reply to my original post.

Hi all, Sorry to resurrect and old post but similarity to the original posters comment I am having some difficulty understanding this too and would appreciate some clarification if possible. I believe I understand what enlightenment is to the best of my ability without having experienced it, and if everything in my unconscious reality is untrue, how can we have a life purpose? It seems to me that the only way to be truly happy and content would be to wake up and realise enlightenment. So what reason is there to chase some imaginary life goal? For example, if I felt my life purpose was to be a Doctor, Self Help Guru or Vet, I would work towards this and once it was achieved, I would still feel like my life was missing something? Is the point not that we do not need anything external to be happy, we just need to be in the present moment? I appreciate that getting to the stage of enlightenment can take many years if it even happens at all, but if you are in a stable career that may not be your passion as such, what is the reason to chase something else when in fact it is only an illusion of self tied to your ego. This could be some basic misunderstanding on my part, and I hope it makes sense and is clear. If someone is able to help me it would really be appreciated. Quotes taken from @Leo Gurafirst spiritual enlightenment video that I am using to help base my understanding as well as numerous books by people such as Tolle etc. “There’s nothing personal about life, which means that everything that you take personally about your life is an illusion. In fact, life is completely neutral and completely impersonal. Even your very body is impersonal. Even your thoughts, your very thoughts about you, are impersonal. The other thing spiritual enlightenment means is that all thoughts and all beliefs, no matter whether they’re religious, spiritual, scientific or everyday beliefs, are all just stories. They’re not reality and they’re not truth-telling. They are just stories.” They are stories about reality, but not reality itself. They don’t carry truth about reality, even though we believe that they do. Another aspect of spiritual enlightenment, which is really cool, is that because the you is an illusion and it doesn’t actually exist, mortality becomes irrelevant. Number two – The other reward you get is lasting happiness and peace of mind. You will have true happiness. What you have now is not true happiness. You are living in a living hell. With this truth, you can actually have true peace of mind, regardless of circumstance. This is a very cool thing. From the moment you were born and up to today, you have been living your life looking and chasing for happiness. You keep telling yourself that if you watch enough of my videos or if you do enough of the personal development work, you will find happiness. Well, I hate to break it to you but you never will. You never will. You can already sense it because you have been trying your whole life and it hasn’t been working, has it? Don’t lie. It hasn’t been working. No matter how many houses you get, girlfriends you get or marriages you get, you are not going to be truly happy. Why? It is not possible because the you is an illusion. This illusion needs to be perpetuated by constant motion. Constant motion creates suffering. If you want to fix this happiness thing and be peaceful, if you want to be peaceful independent of what is happening in life, no matter if you are rich or poor, if you have a girlfriend or not, if you are married or you’re not, you’re kids are doing good in school or they are not, you’re healthy or you’re sick, you need to be spiritually enlightened. It sounds too good to be true. Again, this is one of the awesome rewards of doing this work.”