Joseph Maynor

What is a victim? Victim is always measured up against some Ego-Mind's preference. A preference is always a the golden egg of some Ego. So, you're gonna be a victim many times in life. Every time your Ego-Mind doesn't get what it wants you're gonna feel like a victim. And don't think this is all conventionally selfish stuff. Consider your preference to stay alive, to stay healthy, see. Being will victimize your Ego-Mind in a way that is both foreseeable and unforeseeable. Being doesn't march to your Ego-Mind's drum. And you need to come to terms with this. This is a major part of the Path. The world doesn't revolve around you. Don't take that personally; that's just the way things are for everybody. Being is not for you or for him or her or for that. That's what Ego wants, see. Ego tries to make being partial to me.

Hearty veggie salad, split pea soup, brown rice, steamed asparagus

This is the starting point for a lot of personal development work: how do I make change? If we could make all the change that we wanted to, personal development would be unnecessary. My advice is to single out the change you want to make very clearly. Set it as a project. Take baby steps to execute it. Break the project down into steps or stages if possible. You also want to know why you're doing what you want to do and what kind of long-term effect it will have. Then you need a way to hold yourself accountable to chipping way at it. For example, make a daily checklist that you print out every day that has the work to be done that day which you cross off when completed. And then also you might want to experiment with doing some reprogramming of your Ego-Mind with positive affirmations to get your Ego-Mind bought-in to what you want to do. That's important. If your Ego-Mind is against what you want to do, that's like swimming against a current. And when you start taking action, you'll build up a little momentum which is important too. Oftentimes once you get started on a project, the hardest part of the project will be done -- because getting started is the hardest part because the Ego-Mind is not convinced that what you're doing is a good thing: that fear kicks in and blocks you. Oftentimes you hear the cliche, "getting started is the hardest part of a project". That's true! So, get started, break your project down, take baby steps, and build that momentum slowly.

You know you're really conscious when you stop referring to other people as unconscious. Also, remember too that word goes both ways. The Ego-Mind always prefers to consider itself as the conscious one.

You asked the $1,000,000 question. I think people can be deluded by anything on the Path, so beware. The Ego-Mind wants to feel like it has the one right answer.

Yep. The talk is just there to get you to locate being and to realize that the Ego-Mind doesn't entirely define who/what you are. This allows you to release from some of the sh*tty effects of being trapped in an unenlightened Ego-Mind.

If I same after you with a sword you would figure that out really fast. That little philosophical qualm would go bye bye. Now, why is that?

And yet you still have some free will. How do you explain that?

Someone other than me made this point. Wow. The people who can't see this they just aren't ready to see it. When you're trapped in Metaphysics, you think you have the truth. You gotta go through that and come out the other side like a teenager exhausting a phase to see this, it's not something that can one can be persuaded of intellectually. Most people are way too stubborn for that, since the Ego-Mind is so invested in its own beliefs.

I think we have some free will but not as much free will as the Mind wants to think we do. And I think the wiser you get as a person, the more you take the Mind's agenda with a grain of salt and realize that until you do it, it's just a thought.

I think this Forum can be a great support group for someone who wants get help and help themselves; I know it was for me.

I would honestly encourage participation on here, I've grown a lot on here. If this place were so bad, I wouldn't still be on here. But, if you're on here a lot and still not making progress, then we need to look at why that is. Help for each individual person needs to be tailored to that person. No, I think the Forum is good. Just like everything else you can have too much of a good thing, which can lead to a kind of backfiring effect. But all in all, I think it's good to have a support system here with multiple perspectives of caring people to offer solutions. I still kinda feel that Enlightenment is only part of the solution. There are a lot of aspects to personal development. But I will tell you this, Enlightenment Work should be making you less neurotic not more neurotic. If that's not happening, then we need to look at why that's the case.

I think your take on Enlightenment Work may have made your situation worse. You're at war war with your identity and that's only contributing to your problems. The way you're gonna know you're making progress on the Path is your neurosis should be dialing way down. This idea that your identity is the enemy is not correct and will only backfire on you. This is like a gay man becoming a Catholic priest to try to get rid of his gayness. No, the gayness is still there and now is dysfunctional because it isn't treated right by the holder of the trait. Ditto for your identity. You gotta learn to accept and love your identity, your Ego-Mind. If there's anything I can do to help, PM me. I'm happy to work with you on this.

I've been through phases where I thought I didn't need meditation. But I realize now that meditation is the best practice, the best daily practice for communion with being because it shrinks the Ego-Mind down. I've said that meditation and LSD both have the effect of shrinking the Ego-Mind down so that being and the practice of No Ego can be let in without so many blocks from the Ego. The problem with not meditating is you can get stuck in Ego much easier, and you probably won't even fully realize that. The Ego hides itself when there is no perspective on it from meditation or psychedelics or what have you. That's why it's important to meditate every day. It allows you to practice what I call No Ego, and to be sensitive to being.

The Devil is a concept in a religiously-inclined person's Mind that they cling to. I'm not a fan of using religious words when talking about Enlightenment. If you wanna be religious go for that -- go whole hog into that. I was religious myself for a spell, so I l know exactly what that is and means.

Because when you're satisfied you're not striving. Notice it's those who are not satisfied that are striving.

Why don't you write it? Write the best damn book on the subject.

Who is it that believes reality is a dream and desires not to give a f*ck about said dream? That's the Ego-Mind clinging in two ways there: one as a belief and the other as a desire.

Eliminate all obvious distractions when you meditate.

The Ego-Mind wants very much to locate the "one right" truth about reality.

I like the word being myself. But then I don't put any Metaphysical jibber-jabber constraints on being either. it's just being. It is what it is and it doesn't really benefit from linguistic description.

Not to say I'm enlightened, but what work I have done has brought my neuroticism down really low. I used to have really bad problems with neuroticism, stress, insecurity, over-compensating Ego, etc.

I think the concept of awakening can be deceptive. What you have is your own evolution on the Path.

Watch out for goal. Goal is for the Ego-Mind. Making a goal out of Enlightenment can lead one away from being not closer to it. I know this is hard to wrap your Mind around. But that ain't a coincidence because the Mind is an agent of Ego.