Mondsee

Day 31 Days in a row: 3 Start time: 9:30 a.m. Finish time: 10:00 a.m. Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Do nothing Eyes: closed Highlights: Many thoughts about my ex-boyfriends. I could recognize how that triggered some emotions and sensations to which my ego is kind of addicted. It wants to feel loved, but funnily enough, also as a victim. Those thoughts felt like porn to my mind, it didn't want to stop watching, although it is toxic and useless. When the time was over, I noticed how I wouldn't have minded sitting there for somewhat longer thinking about the same.

Hey @Leo Gura, would you mind translating this into more practical terms? What do you mean with exposing awareness? What does that mean in terms of what we are supposed to do? Thank you!

Day 30 Days in a row: 2 Start time: 9:40 a.m. Finish time: 10:05 a.m. Location: Balcony at my parent's house Technique: Do nothing Eyes: closed Highlights: Story-mode thoughts about love and becoming one with other people.

Day 28 (Report from Wednesday the 26th) Days in a row: 3 Start time: ? Finish time: 35 mins later Location: Balcony at my parents house Technique: Mindfulness meditation Eyes: closed Highlights: I didn't post my report because I had no internet. I can't recall many details, but I remember focusing a lot on the noises I could hear, and trying to grasp them as the noise itself, and not as the result of something I could recognize and label as a car, a bird, etc. Also the session didn't feel too long. Day 29 Days in a row: 1 Start time: 12:30 p.m. Finish time: 12:50 p.m. Location: My room at my parents house Technique: Do nothing Eyes: closed Highlights: Monkey mind, monkey mind, monkey mind. I focused on sounds a little bit, but then went back to monkey mind full on. Also at some point I couldn't help but shake my head because I heard a mosquito flying by.

Day 27 Days in a row: 2 Start time: 11:10 a.m. Finish time: 11:40 a.m. Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Do nothing Eyes: open Highlights: My mind tried repeatedly to understand not only logically, but really how what was in my view field actually existed, and all the rest was only in my imagination. It didn't quite work, and my mind started wandering all over the place, thinking about friends, my ex-boyfriends, my to-do things and other stuff. My left leg got numb quite soon, and many of my thoughts were dedicated to that, and I couldn't help to shake my head when a fly flew very close to my ear.

Day 26 Days in a row: 1 Start time: 10:10 a.m. Finish time: 10:35 a.m. Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Do nothing & mindfulness meditation Eyes: closed Highlights: I started the meditation with the intention to use the "do nothing technique", but what my mind freely decided to do, as I was not controlling it, was a mindfulness meditation. I could hear the birds sing, an airplane, some cars, voices and the sound of a chainsaw (probably coming from the neighbors' house) and my mind would repeat to itself "listen, listen, listen, listen". Additional to that, I was becoming very mindful to the fact that all that there existed in that moment, were the things that I was being mindful of. All the rest were thoughts and memories. When I heard the birds, I was barely starting to be able to just hear the birds, without imagining simultaneously the image of my garden outside, but I knew, and I could recognize that even if I did think about my garden, and it felt very real, that was no more than a thought.

Day 24 and 25 Days in a row: ? Start time: ? Finish time: ? Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Do nothing Eyes: ? Highlights: I only meditated twice during the last 5 days but forgot to report about it. I can't recall a lot other than in one of them I had many thoughts about sex and the other days there were mostly career related thoughts, including a very good idea that I might consider doing.

Today I sat down to contemplate on what I am. At some point I started really grasping, that there definitely is a possibility that I am deluded on what everything is, just as a mentally ill person is, who finds logic explanations for everything so that it fits into the story they're making up. And then my mind was like, "ok fine, there is that possibility... so what do I do to know the truth?" And then it would answer itself, "you know what you have to do, the question is, will you do it?". In retrospective, it seems funny, but at that moment my mind was like "no, I don't know what to do" and then it would answer itself "yes you do!", the conversation continued with my mind asking "ok then, what do I have to do, tell me and I'll do it" and it answering itself "you have to disappear! kill yourself!". The answer to that was "I can't" and then I started crying and my mind was saying "I can't because I don't know how to, tell me how to and I'll kill myself". It was a horrible contemplation session. Now that I'm writing about it, it seems an inner conversation you can laugh to, but it wasn't funny while it was happening. What do you, fellow self-observers, recommend me to do if I hit that same point again, of my mind playing the victim of not knowing how to do what it has to do? Thanks in advance.

A while ago I asked this question. Today I found Peter Ralston's explanation on consciousness and awareness. Maybe you'll find it interesting.

Those three concepts are used a lot when talking about enlightenment. Do they refer to the same thing, to similar things or to different things? How do you specifically define them?

I have a clear intrinsic motivation and passion for languages. I speak 3 fluently, another one fairly well and I'm learning a fifth one right now that I absolutely love. I also give some clases and I enjoy preparing them and doing that... BUT: I don't want to dedicate to languages professionally. I have always seen languages as a tool for my own benefit, to be able to communicate with many people and understand them and their culture on a deeper level. Other than languages, I'm having a hard time to find something that I really do everyday out of pure joy. Everyday I do dedicate a couple hours to deliberate practice of languages. It isn't a fun activity, nor is it always easy, but it fulfills me... but what if I'm very clear on my mind that that isn't what I want to dedicate to? I feel as if I was Tiger Woods saying "I love golf, that's the thing I dedicate most of my time and effort, but I don't want to dedicate professionally to golf, I don't really know what I want to do, but it's not golf". What should I do?

@aurum I do get paid, I already give some clases... but giving clases is just a means of earning money at this point and becoming financially independent. In languages I haven't found a genuine interest that will allow me to make a great and noble contribution to the world. I do think knowing languages will help me as a tool to make a great contribution, but further investigating and studying languages isn't what I want to dedicate my life to.

@onacloudynight maybe they'll all go away when you're there, focusing only in raising awareness.

Day 23 Days in a row: 3 Start time: 10:10 a.m. Finish time: 10:40 a.m. Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Do nothing Eyes: closed Highlights: I started dedicating a moment to connect with my breath and relax my body. Then, some uncomfortable thoughts about the past arose, and I felt my mind trying to resist them, so I focused in recognizing how it wasn't me who was thinking those thoughts. That was followed by a short moment of quietness, where some random images would suddenly appear (for example a bike or a schnauzer dog). The rest of the time, my mind went into story mode, thinking about how my perfect partner would be. I didn't feel any physical discomfort whatsoever, and the session definitely felt much shorter than 30 min.

Day 20 (Report from Friday the 14th) Days in a row: 6 Start time: ? Finish time: ? Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Eyes: closed Highlights: On Friday my yoga practice was a guided meditation focusing on gratitude. I remember I identified very clearly the gratitude feeling in my chest and my arms. That was interesting. I can't remember many more details. Day 21 (Report from Sunday the 16th) Days in a row: 1 Start time: ? Finish time: ? Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Eyes: closed Highlights: On Sunday my yoga practice included a short meditation again (at min. 40:00 more or less) I felt similar as on Friday identifying the location of my feelings in my body. Day 22 (Report from Monday the 17th) Days in a row: 2 Start time: ? (noonish) Finish time: 10 mins after Location: My room at my parent's house Technique: Mindfulness meditation Eyes: closed Highlights: Usually I meditate after doing yoga, that means that I have a comfortable outfit on, but yesterday I sat crosslegged to meditate after getting ready to go out, so I was wearing jeans. It only lasted 10 min, but it feel much longer than that and I was feeling quite inpatient towards the end. I decided to make the most out of the short time, I would do a mindfulness meditation on my breath only. I started doing so, but at some point, a fly walking on my hands was drawing my attention more, so I changed my focus subject to that. Once again, my lower back started itching, and that was a more salient stimuli, so I changed for a third time my focus to that. I didn't feel like I got very deep in contemplating the things I was focusing on, and in general, it wasn't a very high quality meditation.

Show them this article, and ask them if they can relate. Haha to love unconditionally you need to be able to hug wholeheartedly Stalin and Hitler, a rapist or a terrorist, and love them as your best friends, or as much as a kid loves his mum.

@Loreena No, that is not a definition, that would be the consequence of accepting the widely accepted definition of the word "unconditional". You can go and check any dictionary for that matter. Here is an example.

Hahaha no offense intended, but I'd say yours slightly included sometimes! (hint: the problem is, is that)

Nope, he wouldn't. Based on this, the problem isn't that he is lacking a noble purpose and has a big ego. I believe he might be at the point where regardless of what he is doing, he found the treasure and realizes that "shit, my happiness won't come from the outside", and therefore he says that people shouldn't seek to be like him.

@Loreena you are taking away the meaning of words. Of course saying that "unconditional = having no conditions" is restricting that word to mean only that, but I am discussing all this on a semantic level, and on this level, people claiming to love unconditionally are bullshitting themselves. Edit: if you want to make your own definition of unconditional love, maybe as "loving only my left pinky finger" for example, you're free to do that, but you're not discussing that on the semantic level everyone understands, then.

There is no expectation at all, you're making that up. My only claim was that unconditional love has no conditions whatsoever. If it has conditions and you call it unconditional, you're tricking yourself. Hummm, I never said you should test love in any way...

@Vladimir your ideas on the symbol associations seem to be interesting. I'd just recommend you to not get lost in thoughts by finding symbols, meanings and associations between them. Usually, we tend to have enough monkey mind to add even an extra layer to that. Just keep it to the point where it won't make you neurotic.

There are a couple wrong assumptions and irrelevant ideas in this thread. My intention was to say that the next time you hear some mother claiming to love her children unconditionally, you recognize the mistake there, for loving unconditionally is loving everyone and everything without a single restriction, and limiting your "unconditional love" only to your children automatically turns it into conditional love.

@Edvard I haven't watched Leo's video on successful unhappy people, but in Elon Musk's case I am guessing that he went all out for the material shiny success, and he is very smart and a real hard worker, so he attained it, but now that he has it, he realizes it isn't the treasure what will make him happy and satisfied. Maybe that answer of not being sure if people should strive to be like himself is himself starting to notice that money and "success" as normally defined isn't really the treasure he is looking for. He has now two paths, to keep his work and his life as it is, not feeling quite realized, or giving up that kind of success and start looking for what will make him whole. That doesn't mean he will stop doing what he does, but that he will give up doing it for economic growth. Also: his purpose deep down, maybe isn't so noble, and it should for him not to feel empty. If you consider his research on taking humans to Mars, it's like a desperate attempt to save humanity's ass even if we destroy planet Earth, so that actually encourages an unsustainable lifestyle here, and "it doesn't matter, 'cause we'll solve it with technology that'll take us away, at least to those of us who can pay for it" (this is not a quote from EM). It is even as if he was doing the Tesla cars just to give him some extra time to work on the Mars project, I mean, a lot of speculation here, but why care so much for green energy if you're working to leave the planet anyways?

If the only thing you care about is how far you can raise your consciousness/awareness, then why don't you become a monk? That way you can have a lifestyle fully dedicated to that, and you won't need a lot of money. This isn't meant as a joke or anything, I do think that could be a genuine solution in your case ??‍♀️.