Joseph Maynor

Hang in there.

For me the Path was like I had to move into the theory and embody the theory and that led to one kind of awakening. Then later all the theory fell away and that led to another kind of awakening. But now I don’t say reality is an illusion because that’s a belief. I just let things be what they are and deal with my life much more pragmatically rather than clinging to need to know Truth all the time. Truth is a concept and issue that the Spiritual Ego keeps alive even when it’s not useful to do so. There are pros and cons to everything, even clinging to Truth.

I was in a feisty mood that’s all. Every now and again my pendulum swings to wanting to discuss this stuff.

Because people don’t know how to rest as Awareness.

You sound like you just read Kierkegaard.

Good. I'll take a break from running me for a while.

But it's all an illusion SOUL don't you get it! You've created your own illusion, you busy man!

We do it all the time already. Enlightenment peeps are basically teaching you how to look at the self through the lens of No Ego. We already inherently look at ourselves through the lens of Ego.

You can look at you through the lens of free will. You can look at you through the lens of no free will.

The mind is always focused ahead and this is fine -- but what Enlightenment does is suck you right into the pragmatic (not theoretical) Now. This is what grounds you in BE-ING in the present moment. The key to the mind is to realize that the mind is looking out for your Ego, and this can be re-framed as a good, helpful thing. The mind is what allows you to prepare.

He bludgeoned you with a cliche, take it in stride.

Everything I do in my Daily Routine/ Schedule is meaningful to me.

I sense a certain need for self-confirmation here.

Because Enlightenment is not a belief or a concept.

It doesn't really map to it directly. You can think of Maslow's stages as giving you information for Small Picture Life Purpose Work. Small Picture Life Purpose Work is where you identify your Actual Problem Situations and find sustainable solutions to them. The Self-Actualization and Self-Transcendence stages map more to Spiral Dynamics than the lower Maslow stages.

I don’t know why you’re being so defensive.

Well you don’t want to be against Truth either. That’s just as bad because that’s another kind of clinging. You’re not attached to it but you allow it as well. I summarize this as the Paradox of Truth and No Truth.

Truth is a concept. Eventually you will stop chasing Truth. That doesn’t mean Truth is never important, you’re just gonna stop always making it important like a child clinging to its favorite toy. Enlightenment will put you in the Now and ground you, but you’re not gonna be clinging to Truth all the time. You’re gonna be in more of a state where you’re not trying to understand what you are and rather just BE what you ARE. There’s nothing that needs to be grasped with the mind about BE-ing in the Now.

You just accept reality in the Now and realize that reality will rub your Ego the wrong way and it’s not personal. You stop distracting yourself with idealism and focus on pragmatic issues in your life. Enlightenment basically grounds you in the Now — the non-ideological Now. As to suicidal thoughts, that’s just the Ego not liking something about reality. What happens is you become aware of where those emotions are coming from and why and then you can allow them but also not cling to them. In general the Ego does not like change and will trigger sadness during times of change. By understanding Ego you can accept “Ego burn” emotions without getting attached to them. Enlightenment is not knowing a bunch of theory about playing golf — Enlightenment is going out and playing a game of golf. Enlightenment is a way of being not a set of theories to embody. And that way of being is not anything you’re consciously in control over, it’s a transformation of the way you ARE.

There are 3 stages to the Enlightenment Path. (1) Stuck in Unenlightened Ego; (2) Stuck in Spiritual Ego; (3) Transcendence of Truth. The pendulum must swing into idealism and then out of idealism on the Path. It’s a process. But the people who are stuck in idealism have no idea they’re at Stage 2 and not Stage 3. People try so hard to be Enlightened through beliefs not realizing that Enlighrenment is a change or transformation in how you BE or ARE in the Now.

Bingo!

Finding my Big Picture Life Purpose.

Enlightenment is not a story. Enlightenment is not a belief.

This is a tricky question actually. First of all there's your Daily Routine/ Schedule and then there's your projects, which for me are in their own Projects Binder. My recommendation for the Daily Routine/ Schedule is get the whole schedule set up even if you don't complete every item every day. What this means is that all the tasks of your Daily Routine should be identified and looked at every day. I use a Post-It Note method for these where I have one task per and I use a door well to move Post-It's from the right side to the left side as I complete my day. Now, regarding projects, those are where you might want to do like 1 or 2 at a time because you're trying to get a sustainable solution. For me right now I'm really only implementing two projects. The first project I've implemented is quitting drinking alcohol, which I did a couple of weeks ago now. The second project is to wake up at 8 am every day whether I want to or not and to devote 9-5 pm to my Work Day. When I say wake up at 8 am every day that means every day, and that's why you don't really want to implement too many projects at once because you want to actually complete each project. You can kinda fudge on your Daily Routine/ Schedule but you don't really want to fudge on your projects. Each project needs a permanent and sustainable solution.