MiracleMan

Just my opinion, these are all concepts to me as I'm not enlightened and have no authority to present this as truth. Disclaimer over! According to buddhism, once you attain nirvana there is no more reincarnation or karma. So you are actually correct, that is a contradiction, because reincarnation is the form we take, once you realize you aren't the form, it isn't that there is no reason to incarnate, you just aren't that, you aren't the form, the form appears to you, but is not you. Once you realize who you are, if "you" (ego) goes away, and there the true you stays, you know who you are, eternal, limitless, timeless. The cycle of birth and death is over, karma is over, if you realize you are what everything arises too, it's over. I believe form is the conduit for realizing you aren't that. How could nothingness know itself without form? Formlessness needs the form to realize itself, and form needs formlessness to exist. No thing can exist, can stand on it's own, without the space for it to exist in. Tolle has called it space consciousness, or just being more aware of space (formlessness) instead of just form. This is why buddhism uses the phrase "emptiness" a lot and they say the true nature of reality is indeed emptiness. When I started on a path a while back this was morbidly depressing, but I was totally missing the point. You can t have one without the other.

This should come with a disclaimer that says "until proven otherwise" because we have seen throughout the centuries that scientific models and consensus change according to the current paradigm. If this statement was true, then the Ptolemaic model would be still be valid, but it has since found to be untrue, at least from a different observational perspective according to science. Notice also how Newtonian physics is running into a lot of problems with the discovery of general relativity and quantum theory. The interesting thing about relativity is that it warns us to look at the bigger picture, not the observed phenomena but the observer himself and where he is positioned, it makes all the difference, the two can t be separated unless you only want half of the story. So again, the sun rises relative to my position here. It's also stationary relative to my position above the earth. It's also moving relative to the position outside of the galaxy, and so on. Einstein, not sure if he was enlightened, but he definitely looked within himself, never excluded himself, the first person observer, from the observed. They go together.

@Leo Gura, please read "The Science of the First Person" or "On Having No Head" by Douglas Harding. They are very short reads, though he has larger bodies of work out there. His legacy is continued by Richard Lang who was a student of Douglas. I found this path after seeing a Batgap with Lang, and I've been stuck on the headless way since. This path makes a lot of sense to me, perhaps because it's coming from a western mystic. It's practicality is astounding, and Harding was the real deal. This path isn't talked about much, but I think it could be useful to those with a western mindset and conditioning if there is a struggle to understand eastern approaches. I think you'd really enjoy some of his insights, it's really unlike any other path I've explored as of yet. He is such an interesting writer, it's really a pleasure to read.

Where is it? Keep pondering, you may just find it's no where, and everywhere at the same time!! Isn't this exciting news?! I want to share a cool quote by Douglas Harding, if you aren't familiar with him he is known for "the headless way" and it's been a favorite practice of mine recently. "The trouble with the mind is its supposed abstraction from the world, its supposed imprisonment, its supposed condensation into a nuclear thing here. The mind goes wrong by misapprehending where it is and to whom it belongs. (1977 Interview)" He elaborates with great beauty... "I am truly broad-minded to the degree that my mind, let go of, alights on and merges with and irradiates the whole scene. There it comes into its own. To be opinionated, narrow-minded, under pressure, depressed, repressed – all such diseases of the mind arise from its displacement and resulting compression. Given back to the world, returned to where it came from, it expands and recovers. At large again, it is infinitely large and generous. (Look For Yourself) All the complexes and problems of the mind arise from its overcrowding and congestion. The cure isn't to reform it but just let it go where it wants to go. We are now letting it go where it belongs. A tremendous relief! It is not perfecting the mind, because the mind is imperfect in every way. Still one experiences sadness and confusion and anxiety, pain, as well as positive feelings. But they are seen as characterising the world and not as personal hang-ups. This relocation helps a lot, but is no recipe for continuous happiness or any kind of perfection where happiness and perfection don't belong. Only at Centre are you All Right! (1977 Interview)" From headless.org I learned about this from Richard Lang, a student of Harding. Headless.org is his website, you might find some things there that resonate with you. I like this method because it seems more suited to the western intellectual who may be a bit more rigid in "feeling" it, where the headless way implores you to see it from a more direct approach.

I could use some advice on morning meals, preferably something I could prepare the night before or not so time consuming come morning. I'm open to all suggestions. I find more and more my mood can be dictated by the food I eat or lack thereof in the morning.

What i got out Hawkins scale was a method to attract the intellectual crowd to spirituality.

Last weekend I went to try a sensory deprevation tank at a local spa, it was $50 to ride the ride for an hour and half. It was an awesome experience, you really lose yourself in there, it also helped drain a bunch of nasty crap out of my sinuses (not inside the tank, in the shower after). I felt like I was in there for 15 minutes, but also felt like several hours, very strange statement but it really fucks your sense of time. I went into a trance like state pretty quickly once I was situated. I had some hallucinations, mostly just flashes of light, points of light or beams appearing, like shooting stars, and a weird blanket of something I could only describe as like shifting sands but all black and white, or basically the same patterns you'd see in a cloudy sky if you were lying on your back. After the session was over, I was laughing when I got out, felt like I had just gotten off a roller coaster, pretty neat. Anxiety and back pain were gone (briefly but came screaming back after the weekend was over). I've heard of these being used therapeutically for depression, anxiety, PTSD, chronic pain, quite successfully, but they are expensive as crap, it's more of a luxury item. I'm going to get on Autodesk Inventor when I get home and start designing one to build in my house. I also looked into Zen Float, it's more like a tent and inexpensive but looks like a living crap ton of maintenance among other issues. Anyone else tried this? I highly recommend it.

Not sure if it has to be Epsom salt but I think they recommend it because of the therapeutic benefits of that type of salt, maybe it's easier on your skin too? I've heard folks who float a lot say the salt can irritate your skin if you're in there frequently. I'm wondering if a plastic tank could work as well, as long as it's not translucent.

I will look into that. Olive oil doesn't bother me at all and is my go-to oil for pretty much everything.

Looking at the cost, the Zen Float Tent is a good deal, but from what I'm seeing it will require above average maintenance to prevent any water quality issues, as of 2017 they replaced the pump it comes with to filter more water. Another issue is how long will these things really hold up, but it's not a huge issue for me. I'm in the camp of believing that floating, like meditation, is medicinal and not dietary, so I don't think it's something I would need to last but a few years anyways. I didn't get around to making my own design as my student license has expired and I'm waiting on free software to be distributed through my employer. But just a quick rundown of the basics of what you'd need: A basin for the water, at least 8 ft long by 4 ft wide A sealed structure that is water tight to keep in humidity and free of light leaks, total darkness is a must Some type of heater to get the basin up to body temperature and regulate that temperature so it doesn't go over or under A powerful water pump, some folks use pool pumps, preferably external, to filter the water at least 2x a day A GFCI switch to prevent electrical mishaps Sound proofing is optional, and difficult, you should be wearing silicon ear plugs anyways which blocks most noise and prevents swimmers ear 800lb to 1000lb of Epsom salt, this will cost anywhere from $500-$1000 depending on availability in your area Lots of water quality maintenance, maybe a bit more than a pool/hot tub as it's something that will be used daily That isn't an all inclusive list but it helps to start the thought process. The house I have now, I've realized I can't really build one by design. My next house I will likely try to do one myself as a fun project. I think I'm going to try getting the float tent or at least breaking down the plans for it and building something similar. Honestly it's 2 grand for the tent without the salt, that's damn good seeing as a professional would charge you well over 10 grand or more to build one for you in your house. The float pods I've been in at the local spa are upwards of 20 grand with really nice external filtration systems. I think I could manage to build a nice system for under $5000 including the salt, but right now I have no where in my house to build it.

Thanks for the feedback. So sugar doesn't seem to be my friend. It's either sugar or things of an acidic nature that gives me really bad stomach pains. So fruit is fine as long as it's not too sweet and acidic, I can't do pineapple, apples, oranges, etc. I've gotta be careful with honey too because too much sugar will cause me a lot of pain. I do well with carbs, but protein and meat don't seem to do much for me in the morning. Soy milk and almond milk are fine as long as their unsweetened. I've got a very sensitive digestive system so it's hard to really find much to work with. I think a lot of the pain stems from depression and neuroticism, so being at that vibration just makes me more sensitive to pain. So things I know don't work for me: highly acidic foods, high sugar foods like orange juice, dairy of any kind with the exception of eggs, high amounts of oil or fat like bacon, biscuits, anything fried. Not sure what I'm left with here. I think I should just keep a journal of crap that hurts me and eventually I'll find what does work.

You beat me to it!

Double Post

Guys, what about one of my favorite foods: mushrooms! I like portabella and your standard white mushrooms, raw or cooked many different ways. Are they good to have in your diet? @Outer What about Pecans? I love me some walnuts too though.

What about farm raised fish?

I had this belief that a pressure washer was assembled in a certain way, I looked at it and said, "Yeah that piece goes there." Only I had it backwards. I spent weeks thinking I was missing some attachment for it, I bought certain couplings to fit it, but it wouldn't work. It was confusing. My whole reality was shaped by the belief "I know this." I looked at the instruction manual, I just shook my head and laughed. I feel like my entire life has been based around a similar situation.

One cool thing to think about here, you can't ever be out of a present moment! Think about it, everything the ego claims is retroactive, it comes after the fact always, so it's easy to see it as another dissolving object subject to the illusion of time. So thinking that one is running away from the present moment is the ego staking a claim. It's impossible to be out of the present moment. You can only "seem" to be out of it.

Do you guys like to jump around from teacher to teacher or do you stick with one? I've been thinking my progress is slowing because I'm taking advice from too many gurus, and some of them are in disagreement on the "method" and some of these teachers bash each other, at least some of the ones that are still alive and active. Ultimately they are all pointing to the same goal, but I think the path sometimes is littered with so many traps it's hard to navigate when you listen to one guy/gal saying "this is the way" and some other saying "no this is the way." Like so many teachers that advocate Non-Practice but literally practiced for 20 years, became enlightened or whatever, then say how much it was all bull. I understand it though, Guatamma basically said the same thing in his "raft" analogy, but I think some masters get to a point where they wake up, it seems so obvious that they're practice was useless, but to the person practicing, it clearly is some sort of stepping stone. I don't know guys, I think I'm fucking myself over here by reading too much into it. I actually want to practice meditation, and haven't stopped, but I think going from guru to guru has definitely slowed my progress.

Which ones do you think suck?

@Leo Gura What spiritual teacher did you resonate with the most if you did at all?

I've had a particular insight, which to me feels 100% true: pain is in the mind, sickness is in the mind, it's of the ego, and the next part isn't an insight but something I read in ACIM that I believe is true: asking or praying to be healed of sickness reinforces the egoic belief that you are a body, instead a proper prayer (or practice if you will) is to ask for right perception, to see that believing you are a body is a limiting belief and recipe for pain. Don't get it confused, bodies can get sick in a physical sense, bodies can be in pain, but I want to know for a fact that I'm not the body. A bit of a background, I have a chronic pain condition, and admitting this is dangerous, I'm giving my ego more ammo by talking about the pain I'm in. There is no physical evidence for this pain and if you guys do some short research on the chronic pain epidemic you'll find a shocking amount of lack of evidence for physical problems, like MRIs not finding any abnormalities whatsoever, yet millions of people are suffering from a seeming phantom. Mindfulness based chronic pain programs are popping up all over the place now (because some clinics are finally understanding that giving all these folks pain killers aren't working to heal their pain), including one in my area. I really want to do a big thread on this eventually and hear what you guys have to say and compare/contrast research because this highly interests me, and anyone else I can help get out of this pain, the better. Countless teachers have told me "find out who you are" and "Maya can't hurt you if you know who you are." What are the common traps to being stuck in believing you are reduced to a body?

Selfishness, there is a relative aspect to this, anything you do in life could be considered selfish from a particular point of view, so if you are trying to find the least selfish career, in a sense that is a selfish endeavor because "you" have a problem being labeled as selfish. Why not just ignore the subject of selfishness and do something you're attracted to instead of judging yourself or others for what they do. Maharaj ran a tobacco shop, tobacco is poisonous. He was also enlightened, so I'd be careful about what you judge as selfish or not selfish, what's authentic, what's not. Enlightened people aren't excluded from being selfish, on the contrary, the path to enlightenment can be seen as the most selfish thing in life, the most noble, or the most insane, it depends on which perspective you view it from. If I feel authentic, I am authentic, if I wait for you to tell me I'm authentic, or this purpose is authentic, then it isn't. To what authority do you obey in determining the judgement?

One thing I noticed is how retro-active the mind is, it claims everything after it already happened, but it seems like it's happening at the same time. I'm seeing something happen, then the mind comes in and claims that event as if it had a part in it happening.

@AleksM I recently talked to the teacher of a small sangha in my area. He said I put far too much value on my meditation practice and that I should be meditating all day, basically the same thing you suggested in your original post. He said this was the reason for the lack of major results. I can see why this process could take years, even if you do multiple hours a day. I try to meditate 30 mins to an hour a day, and more on weekends, I've had some good results but they are stagnating. Some recent results are: Diminished depression - suicidal and disturbing thoughts are gone, or have much less impact Some minor neurotic behavior has vanished, but the major neurotic behavior remains Reduced amount of anger and better understanding when anger arises Work feels more rewarding, less of a burden, I'm less bored and more focused on the job Awareness of how judgemental I am of everything - I can see my mind attacking things constantly, and I'm aware of how I lack control over the attacking entity Insights into a baseline level of fear that runs in the background More I can't think of... So I'm thinking the 24/7 hard mode meditation, making every second count, is the way to go. I'm trying to go on a 10-day retreat here soon, if I don't get into this one I'm going to start setting up my own retreats.

Maybe this is a lesson in humility, to maybe take spirituality less seriously so some insight can actually reach me instead of using my personal will and ego to find salvation for me, which is impossible. Seeking has done nothing for me thus far except make me more thirsty. I'm drinking salt water over here but yet every teacher is handing me a metaphorical glass of thirst quenching goodness and all I can respond with is "So where is the good shit?"